Market Outlook: The podcast discusses a potential reflationary environment due to synchronized global easing by major central banks, improving liquidity conditions, and resilient US growth indicators.
US Dollar: Tion Yang highlights a potential risk for a squeeze higher in the dollar index, suggesting that the Fed's recent rate cut might be an insurance cut in a non-recessionary environment.
China and Trade Tensions: The discussion covers the measured response of China to US trade tensions and the strategic preparations by China for upcoming trade meetings, indicating a more contained escalation compared to past events.
Economic Indicators: Leading indicators suggest a setup for recovery rather than recession, with stable US growth rates and signs of recovery in European and Chinese economic data.
Inflation Pressures: Inflation is expected to remain above target but without a significant second wave, with moderate pass-through pressures from producer prices and import costs.
Investment Implications: The podcast suggests maintaining tactical hedges due to potential market corrections and emphasizes the importance of monitoring cross-asset volatility and credit conditions.
Commodities: A bullish outlook for commodities is presented, driven by both cyclical recovery and structural demand from geopolitical and industrial policy factors.
Geopolitical Context: The broader geopolitical context is discussed, focusing on the shift towards economic nationalism and resilience in supply chains between the US and China.
Transcript
This is Macrovoices, the free weekly financial podcast targeting professional finance, high- netw worth individuals, family offices, and other sophisticated investors. Macrovoices is all about the brightest minds in the world of finance and macroeconomics telling it like it is. Bullish or bearish, no holds barred. Now, here are your hosts, Eric Townsend and Patrick Szna. Macrovoices episode 502 was produced on October 16th, 2025. I'm Eric Tanzant. Variant Perception CEO Tion Yang returns as this week's feature interview guest. We'll discuss the leading indicators Variant Perception uses to guide their macro strategy, what they say about growth and inflation, and how that translates to trades in today's market. And be sure to stay tuned for our postgame segment after the feature interview because during that feature interview, Tion will explain why he sees a risk for a squeeze higher in the dollar index. Patrick will then translate that to specific actionable trading instructions in our new trade of the week segment right after the feature interview with Tion Young. And I'm Patrick Szno with the macro scoreboard week overweek. As of the close of Wednesday, October 15th, 20125, the S&P 500 index down 121 basis points, trading at 6671, the trade war driven volatility is back, but still has not cracked the market for a bigger correction. We'll take a closer look at that chart and the key technical levels to watch in the postgame segment. The US dollar index down 16 basis points, trading to 9866, consolidating the recent strength. The November WTI crude oil contract down 684 basis points trading at 58.27. A decline is underway, begging the question if the April lows near 50 are in play for the next support line. The November arb gasoline down 681 basis points to 178. The December gold contract up 322 basis points to 4201. Gold is in full parabolic mode right now. The December copper contract down 157 basis points trading at 501. Uranium up 245 basis points trading to 7955. And the US 10-year Treasury yield is down 11 basis points trading at 402 trading near the lows of the year. Now the key news to watch this week is Friday's monthly OPEX rolloff. And beyond that, we have the ongoing government shutdown and impacts on release of key economic data. This week's feature interview guest is variant perception CEO Tien Yang. Eric and Tien discuss global economic outlook, inflation pressures, China, semiconductors, and more. Eric's interview with Tien Yang is coming up as macrovoices continues right here at macrovoices.com. And now with this week's special guest, here's your host, Eric Townsend. Joining me now is Variant Perception CEO, Tion Young. As usual, Tion provided not just one, but two slide decks to download in association with this week's podcast. Registered users will find the download links in your research roundup email. If you don't have a research roundup email, just go to our homepage, macrovoices.com, click the red button above Tion's picture that says looking for the downloads. Tion, it's great to have you back on. Before we get started, we should say probably that we are recording this on Tuesday morning, a couple of days before it will air. This is a week when uh quite a lot has happened since Friday. Needless to say, we're back to President Trump kind of throwing the market some unexpected tape bombs. What's your take on Friday's action and what could happen between now and uh when this airs on Thursday and after that why don't we dive into your leading indicator watch which is the first of your two slide decks. >> Yeah, thanks Eric. Great to be back. Obviously there's a lot of uncertainty but I think the biggest picture remains that the Chinese and the US are ultimately talking right. So compared to when Trump first returned to office compared to liberation day I think there's a lot more established channels of communication. I think the Chinese response has actually been a lot more measured that you know the market's obviously a bit worried about the risk of escalation but compared to 100% tariffs like China's responded with very targeted measures. I wouldn't even be surprised if they maybe gave Trump a warning before they announced it. So overall it kind of feels like there's a bit of posturing you know ahead of the meeting. in the past kind of few weeks and months, you can see China kind of getting prepared for that, right? Strategically lowering their imports of like American agricultural products so they have something to give Trump for the meeting coming up. So I I would say I'm heartened by how measured the Chinese have been in response to this. So that kind of suggests this isn't really the kind of tip for tat extreme escalation we saw back in April. This is ultimately I think going to be a bit more contained. >> Well, I certainly hope that you are correct about that. Let's move into a whiff of reflation, which is the title of your G3 leading indicator watch this month. >> In terms of the the big picture, you know, six-month outlook, we essentially think this is a setup for a potentially reflationary environment. Our macro risk indicators have gone from, you know, when we last spoke a bit more neutral towards more um kind of riskon territory in the last few uh months. Essentially what we see right now is a synchronized global easing cycle amongst all the major central banks. Pretty good improving liquidity conditions, credit creation driven by the private sector and our US growth alias have been pretty resilient all year whilst we're starting to see kind of the first signs of Europe lead indicators recovering and China becoming less bad. So overall that's a pretty uh decent macro setup. Uh at the same time, we think the Fed cut in September potentially is a cut into a nonrecessionary environment. Um so historically there's been a couple of these examples in 84 uh 95 and you know you can also count the September 2024 cut last year and the key takeaway is that you know the Fed cut ends up being an insurance cut puts a bottom under growth and ultimately uh you know growth and inflation uh hold up and um obviously that that broadly leans into the idea that potentially yields and dollar uh kind of find a bottom and actually squeeze a bit higher. Yeah. So that's kind of the biggest kind of you know 3 to six months ahead road map we have right now and that's kind of broadly how we're thinking about it. You know I obviously understand concerns around AI bubbles and and and those things but I would almost phrase it like there's a valuation problem in some pockets of the market maybe but at least on our lead indicators we don't think there's necessarily a huge macro problem right now. Tian, let's dive into your leading indicators starting on page three. >> Like uh like I mentioned, our main US growth lei is still pretty stable at around 2% annualized growth rate. Uh this is pretty much in the ballpark of where most high frequency coincident measures of US growth is. You know, the Fed weekly as we show here, you know, annualized 2.3 2.4%. uh if you strip out the volatile components of GDP now you get at the core underlying private sector part uh that's now at 2.5% annualized growth and you know other high frequency data like you know TSA travel uh you know restaurant booking so forth you know credit card spend most things are fine right now so you know we would characterize as leis you know lead indicators are resilient and constant growth is also resilient >> you're describing an analog to 2002 through 2003 on page for what's the connection there? >> Yeah. So, I think one of the big outliers or or points of concern right now is clearly the US labor market. So, there's a lot of concerns on well is the US labor market weakness, a sign of recession. Um, you know, why is it that retail sales have held up and you know the economyy's held up yet? The job market is so weak. So, we essentially had to look at when was the last time you had this kind of a setup. And so it's very interesting to note uh the last time we we had hiring be this weak but retail sales hold up and start to even accelerate was actually in the 2002 2003 period which was essentially characterized as a jobless economic recovery and and there's a lot of analoges you know in addition to the retail sales divergence you also had a similar kind of uh you know bottoming and acceleration in capital good spending back then against the backdrop of weak hiring. So again you can see the analogies to today with AI capex but but weak jobs and the the liquidity context is also very comparable. So again you've got the weak labor market but back then by 2002 and three you have a a pretty synchronized global easing cycle amongst the major central banks. You have the surging global excess liquidity uh coming out a period of uh cheap um energy prices right you know as as we show here with the kind of draw down in in uh in crude oil prices as well. So all those things actually suggest this is more of a setup you see heading into a recovery uh rather than on the precipice of of a of a recession. The the major structural caveat is obviously to note that back then it was after China joining the WTO in 2001. So there was a pretty structural offshoring of US manufacturing jobs and obviously that is something that uh isn't going to be happening today. Right? So ultimately that kind of suggests there's less of a structural reason why the job market uh is going to remain weak like back then. You know there's some underlying signs for the US labor market is decent. For example, you know, prime age participation rate is has recovered back to a pretty healthy level. So ultimately we would think this is more likely a setup heading into a recovery and if there's a recovery eventually that will result in a turnaround of labor market again just like we saw in 0203. I can't help but react to the headline on page five. Recession is unlikely. If everyone disses and financial conditions are loose, so as long as everybody spins beyond their means into easy money, everything's going to be fine. >> Um yeah, I mean the way we think about recessions is ultimately these are like phase shifts, right? where you go from a pretty normal cyclical behavior in the economy towards the sudden shift when the hard economic data and the soft kind of financial market data start deteriorating at the same time. The the real reason to worry about recessions is those times when you know financial assets start selling off which then leads to kind of precautionary behavior. you know households maybe save more but as a result you know earnings start falling companies lay off more workers and these vicious cycles are formed and you know I think that window of vulnerability was actually a bit more elevated if you think back to like May and June when equity markets had drawn down there was a bit more signs of financial market stress and obviously the the economic data was kind of uh stalling the difference today is that you know some of the things we measure here like real M1 in the top left chart here has returned to growth so US real narrow money growth uh real narrow money is growing. We obviously still have a pretty big absolute fiscal uh deficit. The US household savings rate had been rising uh but it start has started actually rolling over again. So again households are continuing to to you know keep a low savings rate and obviously financial assets are still near alltime highs right like you know obviously it's been you know a couple of days since the the Trump uh tweet. So this is not to say that there's no risk per se. Our US recession model risk is around 30%. So lowish but not zero. The reason it's low is because of US housing and labor. But but the key thing that would make it jump higher is that ultimately the time to worry is when say S&P draws down 5 to 10%. And then you get a bad job print, right? that's the time when these feedback loops could potentially start and both deteriorate at the same time and it gets a lot more concerning about the phase shift to recession. As of right now, that isn't really the case. Um, you know, we can see how the how this um kind of, you know, China US trade war escalation plays out, but I think that that's the key point I want to make on this. >> John, moving on to page six. It looks like you're anticipating the potential for an inventory rebuilding cycle. >> Yeah. So again on that theme of we more likely heading to a slowdown or recovery there's some typical signs you actually see going into a recovery right now. Um so on the the consumer side one of the things we we we're showing here is that the bank bank's willingness to make consumer loans has actually been improving and historically this leads the uh US kind of credit delinquency rates for consumers. So again this will be a sign that delinquency rates have likely peaked in the US. Uh equally if you look at US discretionary retail sales uh which we define as kind of those you know big ticket items furniture home furnishing electronics uh clothing and the like uh again that's had a a pretty target couple of years and been forming a base and has actually already returned to growth. So again something you you you see more out of a slowdown than heading into one on the wholesale side. If you look at durable goods wholesale uh revenues that's actually started to accelerate even as inventory growth uh remains kind of tepid. So again something you see more out of a out of a slowdown than heading into one. And finally within the ISM survey there's this very interesting subcomponent called customer inventories and that's something where uh you know you can see the red line at the bottom right chart there it's actually low and has been falling. So i.e. you know within ISM survey people reporting that their customers have low inventories and have falling inventories. So again these are more signs of the potential for recovery than not. Overall we get that the labor market looks a bit weak but you're not getting that much confirmation elsewhere. >> Moving on to page seven. Let's take a look at inflation pressures. >> Yeah. So I think the the the headline on inflation is that we are going to be above target for a while but the risk of a second wave remains relatively low for now. uh in you know I think ultimately probably around 3% annualized uh inflation in terms of the key data to keep our eye on. Uh one thing we're tracking very closely is actually um PPI and import prices which is the top right chart here. So you can kind of see PPI for both goods and services are settling in just below 3%. This is obviously a measure of how much pass through pressure that will ultimately need to be on consumer prices and equally import prices are a reflection of um you know our our kind of foreign suppliers ultimately eating eating the the tariffs which the answer is no right now. So I think we're a little bit at a point where yeah there'll be some moderate pass through pressure on the inflation front uh but you know PPI is not surging factors like you know cheap energy prices and the like have likely helped there as well and ultimately what determines the ability to pass through price increases is actually lower income consumers right which we know have been struggling a lot more so you know the the rate of pass through will tend to be more moderate in general you can think about the top 20% of consumers as driving growth and the bottom 20% health as being important for how much inflation pass through there is. So right now it kind of looks like there's some moderate you know input cost pressures to pass through in general uh but it'll be pass through at a more moderate rate. >> Let's move on to China on page eight. >> I think what's very interesting China the price action has obviously been pretty uh reflationary so far. You know we show here that Chinese small caps have been surging relative to large caps. you know, Chinese 10year yields are finally bottom and started to tick up. And you're actually seeing the very first signs of things going from terrible to slightly less terrible. Uh, you know, the bottom right chart there showing a essentially employment PMI survey for China, private sector one, and it has gone from kind of very depression-like levels and started to recover. uh so broadly speaking you know we would say that China overall doesn't look as bad as it's been and at the same time lead indicators of in of both growth and inflation have bottom has started to recover so overall um you know we're heading into kind of the uh the fourth platum now there's a lot more of talk about they you know the Chinese authorities need to do some more for the for the consumption side uh so yeah I would say macro tailwinds are still there uh for China and obviously I'm making an assumption that Trump and she will ultimately meet and you know try and announce a win for each other but within that context the macro setup looks okay economy going from bad to slightly less bad liquidities tailwinds are good and asset prices broadly are on board with the the kind of recovery story >> let's move on to the Euro zone on page 10 >> yeah on Euro specifically what's very interesting is that you know Europe's structural problems are well known right from the political dysfunction to you know elevated energy prices we show here on page 10 the bottom right there's a lot of problems but what's very interesting is that we're actually seeing a bit of a recovery our lead indicators and some of the underlying data for the first time in a very long time essentially you know over the past three three to four years you're really starting to see a more kind of uh coordinated recovery in the German data so for example the German IFO expectations minus current conditions that differential is actually turning turning positive now for the first time in a very long time. You know, we see that in the top right chart there on slide 10. Uh the percentage German manufacturing industries where production expectations are uh improving. Again, that's that's kind of recovered to more than half. So, we potentially have the potent have a little bit of a cyclical uh rebound coming in Europe. Again, I think the structural problems are real. So the magnitude might not be there, but you're kind of finally seeing this come through, you know, on on the back of some of the excitement around German fiscal as well. >> John, let's touch on slide 11. Consensus too optimistic on disinflation. >> Uh yeah, so on on Europe, I think it's worth pointing out that the the market, the ECB obviously was a bit further ahead of the of the US in getting their um rate cuts in um and policy rates being taken down to 2%. I would say the consensus is fairly relaxed on European inflation risks. But it's interesting to note that our estim. The neutral policy rate the real neutral policy rate is actually 0.8 which is a bit towards the higher end I would say of you know consensus of where ECB is. So that would actually suggest that uh you know the neutral nominal policy rate right now is is more closer to like 3%. Uh rather than two. So we suspect that if anything ECB policy is actually towards uh slightly more stimulatory uh territory you know the market is obviously focused on the France risk right now is trying to price some cuts in but if you look at the the bulk of the arrival curve right we got in the bottom right there you know ultimately there are now hikes discounted for uh 2026 2027 and it's hard to price a lot more in for next year. So given the ECB is ready to put the cuts in, given the very first signs of some of those cyclical leading indicator recoveries, uh, you know, the risk reward probably actually favors, you know, slightly more reflation in Europe and positioning for that. >> Tiana, I wanted to start there with the leading indicators because that's what variant perception is best known for. You also sent us a second PDF titled macro snapshot October 2nd. Tell us what that deck is about and go ahead and dive in. Yeah. So that's kind of more the investment implications in terms of trade ideas or asset allocation. Obviously, you know, using our lead indicators for uh kind of the six months for a macro context. Um so obviously a lot of the the elements we kind of already touched on. So maybe the key things I want to highlight here is uh if we go to like slice six and seven that's probably the most important and then we can talk about commodities as well. So I think right now you know one of the concerns that even if uh there isn't necessarily as obvious signs of macro problems clearly there's some concerns around the lack of risk premium in asset classes right whether you look at credit spreads or US large cap equities so it's natural to be a bit concerned about have we fully discounted uh this relatively benign macro outlook and you know the way we think you can deal with it is that we have two very tangible signposts to watch uh for a sign that a correction may be playing out. And in fact, obviously, we put this on October 2nd. We actually had a a a kind of hedging signal October 8th, which was fortuitous timing. But um but essentially that there's two things to to think about. The first is, you know, during periods like this, what we want to be very focused on is how crosset volatility and uh just credit and credit linked are trading in general. Normally um when a a correction potentially starts what you observe is that all volatility across asset classes start to tick up from the lows and all different measures of credit start to deteriorate. The key is the the kind of breath of it and and the simultaneous nature of it rather than the magnitude. So if they all deteriorate at the same time that tends to be more reflective of the beginning of a broader derisking. Um and so that's one of the the key things to keep an eye on. and we're kind of starting to see kind of inklings of that a little bit. Um, so that's just a very market behavioral stuff. You know, we formalized it into the the kind of VP correction signal. We have various versions of kind of tactical hedging uh signals right now. So it does make sense to uh keep some tactical hedges for the month of October. Uh you know this is the bulk of earning season. We have the Fed at the end of the month. Um and we also obviously have the Trump uh she meeting end of the month as well. So there's quite a lot of catalyst. that likely means that imply will remain bid. So you're you're a lot less less likely to bleed uh as much as normal. So that that's kind of the the overall thinking there on the tactical piece of the portfolio. In terms of the the cyclical road map and the signpost to watch for, one of the the key worries right now is that the Fed cuts may become interpreted by the markets political as reflecting Trump's desire for uh more cuts to lower interest expenses. And that works and works until it doesn't. We just don't know when. But the the the sign from the market will be that at one of these upcoming Fed cuts, it's possible we see the yo-yo curve kind of have a sharp bass steepening in response to one of the cuts. And that will be, you know, a marketbased sign that okay, we've kind of hit the limit here and then, you know, they probably need to pull back a little bit. Um, so I think that's something I'm watching for very closely. I don't know when. I mean, it could be even the October Fed cut the market has that reaction, but obviously it could be January or whenever it is. Um, and I think that's just something to bear in mind that I think we have this pretty decent macro goldilock setup until the Fed overd does it and cuts too much and then inflation fears pick up and then time premium all these things matter again. Um, so those are like the two tangible things uh right now to to watch for. >> Let's touch on semiconductors on page seven. >> Uh, yeah. So obviously you know talk of the town AI bubble right you know mental energy is being kind of spent on this already. So again, we're not going to pretend to be like the AI experts, but we do have some general frameworks we use to think about this. Uh the key one being our capital cycle framework. And so ultimately on our capital cycle framework, what it tries to do is it tries to understand kind of capex and R&D spend, what the marginal operational ROIC is for that spend, and ultimately how that translates into profit. But we do it kind of across the entire aggregated profit pool. So what's been what is more interesting to us is that on our capital cycle models is actually software that has been relatively weak within tech. Um semis have actually seen improving capital cycle while hardware has been kind of deteriorating slowly but software is kind of the weakest. Um so you know despite all the to you know I think it's understandable a lot of the concerns around you know com repeat dark fiber or the rail buildout like a lot of those things are valid u but timing wise typically the sequence we would expect to see is that you know we need to see the marginal operational ROI start to come off a bit and then the capital cycle score will will deteriorate a lot. So far only one of the pieces are in place which is essentially the surge in capex but for a lot of the AIcentric stuff for the profit pool as a whole um the the the kind of marginal returns are still significantly higher than the weighted average cost of capital. Um obviously these things will shift as assumptions around useful life depreciation schedules you know vendor financing all these things will eventually show up in how you know the the weighted average cost of capital is calculated. But it's just worth highlighting a high level that you know at least right now you know the industry is covering the cost of capital is actually profitable and so it may be a little bit early to be worrying about um the surge in capex. >> Let's touch on commodities on page 11. >> Yeah. So I think the last thing that I think is very interesting is that we have a pretty unambiguously bullish commodity uh setup uh with with our models as well. The demand, supply and balance models are suggesting quite strongly for a commodity recovery cyclically and obviously structurally the backdrop should be pretty favorable where we are moving to a more a world of kind of great power competition, right? Supply chains, commodities are being used and weaponized in geopolitics and you have not just cyclical recovery but also kind of more price insensitive industrial policy driven or politically driven demand potential as well. So it's a pretty good setup for commodities in general now that gold prices in real terms have surged back towards kind of the 19 you know 70s 1980s high the the you know it's really about whether the other things can start to catch up as we show on the top right hand chart here. So broadly I think you know overall for the complex we we think the upside is still very very good. Um the lagard is probably going to be oil this time just because of you know OPEC and supply and obviously some of the political imperatives around you know keeping inflation contained but I think industrial commodities and the like the capture potentials is very good and and ultimately obviously we'll get recovery in uh in oil as well. >> John for the last few minutes let's zoom out to this big picture that everybody's trying to figure out. Seems like just last Friday, China was absolutely evil and uh you know was the end of the world and then all of a sudden they're best friends again. Is this just a part of the Donald Trump approach to diplomacy and what should we expect next? >> Uh yeah, so I think the the biggest picture here is actually something we laid out all the way back in 2022 when we wrote a kind of pretty big thematic report on the coming capex super cycle. you know the end of the invisible hand uh you know essentially the end of kind of free market driven you know let's say fair glo you know globalization right and I think this is kind of the biggest context uh for that basically the US and the Chinese systems are moving from a focus on profit and efficiency towards the need for resilience but you know efficiency can you know the flip side of resilience essentially inefficiency right you're going to duplicate supply chains you're going to stockp more inventories, uh, you know, you're going to change how resources are allocated. And so, I still think that's kind of what what is really going on and having to manage that process. Um, at the same time, there's, you know, with with the great power dynamics kicking in here, there's obviously a lot of, you know, lessons from history we can learn. So I think for me a very useful context to think about is actually more the you know US period would be kind of World War II into like like the 50s with FDR and essentially the the Arsenal of democracy kind of analogy. So what that ultimately means is that when you have very important um kind of national policy imperatives you you need to start thinking about the government's balance sheet and the private sector balance sheet as just one thing one national balance sheet. So in FDR example I cited you know that was like getting you know private sector to build your tanks and planes and to fuel the war effort right and then later on uh you know coordinating between private and public sector in the cold war and this is essentially the playbook China has taken for uh quite a while right in terms of how China coordinates their private sector uh with government policy to drive a lot of you know industrial policy imperatives national policy imperatives so I think that's kind of the the biggest picture context effects that we are just moving towards a world that you know both countries want to emphasize uh resilience, supply chain resilience and this this idea of like to compete you kind of need to start coordinating a lot more in terms of big business big government working together and obviously broadly speaking like most of the the marginal news we see uh leans into that story right uh all all year long so I think that's kind of the where ultimately both sides want to end up and then they just have to manage is a transition uh in the middle, right? So, and this is where I think there's a realization that leverage is becoming in in my opinion at least a bit more balanced. So, I think the US probably does not have as strong a leverage as the US thought in terms of tech sanctions uh on China, right? the the the rapid pace of Chinese uh tech development I think has probably surprised the US side and equally I think the US side might have underestimated the kind of short-term rare earth uh choke point again in the long in the long term rare doesn't matter right like you know rare are not that rare it's kind of abundant you just have to be able to refine it but in the short term obviously China has the refining capacity and so they need to play that card while they can so I would say that's kind of where because the leverage is a bit more balanced heading into kind the the Trump sheet meeting they can obviously try and position uh but ultimately I think as I mentioned right at the beginning of this uh meeting that the the structural direction is set right both countries know they need to build up resilience from each other um and just to you know prioritize domestic national needs but they don't want to have such a dramatic uh kind of divorce that that the short-term pains too much and so that's why all these communication channels have been established you know, since Liberation Day and and they're going to and they're likely talking and so I think you'll just keep getting these nominal wins that both sides can announce to their domestic audience, avoid the worst of the disruption, but ultimately the trend is really towards, you know, trying to build up essentially economic nationalism and resilience in terms of supply chains and manufacturing. >> Tion, as always, I can't thank you enough for a terrific interview. Before I let you go, tell us a little bit more about the work that you do at Variant Perception, what services are on offer for our institutional investors and where people can follow your work. >> Yeah, well, thanks for having me on as usual. So, you know, varantsperception.com uh you know, we can share a link for some of your listeners as well if they're interested in getting some more materials or to have um some access to our portal. But essentially, you know, we focus on building uh investment models, right? modeling the economy, modeling asset classes, modeling uh market behaviors and modeling long-term uh structural capital cycles and then from those models we will find outliers or interesting investment themes contextualize those in terms of the news and price action and flag ideas. Patrick Szna and I will be back as macrovoices continues right here at macrovoices.com. Now back to your hosts, Eric Townsend and Patrick Serezna. >> Eric, it was great to have Tian back on the show. Well, listeners, you're going to find the download link for the postgame trade of the week in your research roundup email. If you don't have a research roundup email, that means you have not yet registered at macrovoices.com. Just go to our homepage, macrovoices.com, and click on the red button over Ten's pictures saying, "Looking for the downloads." Patrick, we're getting great feedback on our new trade of the week segment. What's on deck this week? >> Eric, let's go a little deeper into the dollar story because this ties directly into what Tien discussed in the interview. He made a strong case for the US resilience, sticky inflation, strong growth, and a Fed that's easing into strength rather than weakness. All of which sets the stage for a potential dollar squeeze higher. Now, what makes this setup particularly interesting right now is that the implied volatility on the Euro futures has collapsed to year-to-ate lows. I have a chart on page two showing this. We are currently around 6.6% down from roughly 9% earlier this year. That tells us the markets completely priced for calm and stability. And when volatility is priced this cheap, the asymmetry shifts in our favor. Why? Because the carry cost of being long options is lower. The marginal Vega risk to the downside is limited and you retain the potential for a Vega tailwind if a macro event forces risk premium back into the market. In other words, this is a perfect environment to own convexity. So rather than trying to express the dollar strength through a linear short on the EuroUSD or an outright futures short, I'd rather do it in a convex way where my downside is fixed but my upside is open if something breaks. Now here's the trade. by the March 6, 2026 Euro futures put option at the one spot 1750 strike, which is essentially at the money for 198 pips, which is essentially at the money for 198 pips with the March 2026 Euro futures trading at one spot 11745 at the time of this quote. In practical terms, that's 198 pips or $2,475 per contract. And it gives you the right to be short the euro at the one spot 1750 over the next five months. You'll pay a small defined premium to own pure gamma clean convex exposure in the market that's completely complacent on volatility. Those of you that want to visually see a breakdown of this trade, it is on page three of this week's trade of the week download. The beauty of this structure is that you don't need a crystal ball or a specific catalyst. Any macro event, a policy surprise, inflation shock, or geopolitical flare up that pushes the dollar higher can create an outsides move uh relative to the premium at risk. For perspective, even a 50% retracement of this year's euro advance would take the pair back to around 112 where the option would be sitting on over 500 pips of intrinsic value. On the flip side, if the dollar bare market continues, your risk is clearly defined. You lose the premium and walk away. But the way I see it, you're paying a small insurance premium to own convexi on a currency market that is priced for perfection. And that's a trade I'll take every single time. Patrick, that explanation worked for the pros. And of course, our retail audience can get the full briefing by attending Patrick's Monday webinar, which always dissects the trade of the week in detail. Macrovoic's listeners can get a free trial at bigpicturetrading.com. Eric, let's dive into this. Let's what's your thoughts here on the markets? Well, Patrick, remember what I've said before, which is the Trump tariff turbulence that we went through several weeks ago was not going to be the last round. Needless to say, the next round is already upon us. And I don't think this next round will be the last round either. What happens next in the immediate term is going to depend on the headlines. Be ready to be whipsawed in either direction by Trump policy announcements. It's very clear that President Trump is not concerned about the short-term impacts on financial markets as a result of his uh strong policy choices. Moving back or stepping out to the bigger macro picture, I think where we are is in the misleading early phase of a secular inflation. Secular inflations always start out looking beautiful. It seems like everything's running hot, the economy is strong, everything's growing, it all looks great. It's actually just the beginning of the inflation and the negative feedback loops haven't kicked in yet. So, I think that's the big picture of what's happening uh for the economy. As far as what the market does next, it'll be headline driven. Let's see what Trump and Bessant dish out next. Well, Eric, we finally got ourselves a market correction. It was a very fast rapid one-day peakto trough, 4% market drop that directly tested the 50-day moving average. So, how do we size up the conditions of marketable? First of all, we have the options expiration this week, which uh if the market stays within these major strikes, the g there's a lot of dealer pinning that happens just from the natural order flow of all that gamma that they have on the books. So, the market consolidating here this week. It would is not abnormal. But the big question here is that with this new rise of volatility, we're talking about a VIX that is now at 20 plus on the upside. At the same time, we have market breath deteriorating which I have on page five. You can see that we hit a low of around 36% uh on the downside. We're bounced back about 47% but we have majority of stocks actually in a downtrend already selling. Now what is a positive for the markets? Well, the bank earnings started to roll out and they all had positive reactions on it. I was looking at whether or not the financials would uh diverge and show that deterioration, but they've at least shown a little bit of strength. Now, for me, this is a very simple trade right now. Consider the bulls to be in control of this market above that 50-day moving average with 6,600 sitting right at there and the low of the market coming around 6,600 from uh earlier in the week. This is a logical place to watch for a break. Uh if we break down below there, we could see all sorts of systematic selling weather ball targeting funds, CTAs, and even uh dealer gamma exposure that could start becoming a feedback mechanism that accelerates the downside air pocket. But right now, the market is not in that danger zone. So, let's see whether that technical breakdown actually gets underway. So, Eric, let's move on to the dollar. What are your thoughts? Well, we tested the high end of the consolidation range. haven't seen the breakout yet that uh that Tion seems to be anticipating and it's very much consistent with the tariff tantrum. We we've seen this uh you know bouncing up and down. Needless to say, we what Trump just said was dollar bullish. That means we're going to test the high end of the consolidation range. We haven't broken out of it yet. I also want to comment that the strong rally in gold reminds us what's going on here with this US dollar strength is relative to other currencies only. The big picture is fiat currency overall is debasing badly against hard assets. That's what's being reflected by the fact that gold is strong here even in the face of short-term dollar strength. The next few policy headlines are going to determine what the Dixie does next as a relative strength indicator relative to other currencies. But again, dollar up, gold up at the same time is a very important reminder that the Dixie is a relative, not absolute measure. And the big trade here, the big picture trade is dollar down or all fiat currencies down and hard assets including gold up. Well, for me, the dollar is showing relative strength in the last few weeks, and this is an important thing to watch whether it is bought on dip and whether we can stay above the 50-day moving average here. The entire US dollar bare market that happened this year has pretty much sustained uh below the 50-day moving average for pretty much almost 9 months. And so now uh uh with us pivoting here will this be showing the price action that in fact the dollar has room to actually counter trend uh like we were talking about even through the interview. Now for me it's a lot about the different pairings. The euro broke down below the 50-day moving average. The pound sterling's been weak. That US dollar yen ripped to the upside after the elections. The US dollar CAD has broken out and remains at multimonth highs. So there's a backdrop that you can really see where US dollar strength can come from. So will uh we see some sort of a breakout here that really gets this underway where we could see a dollar move up to 101 to even 103 on the upside. Certainly uh a really interesting moment in the dollar here. So let's move on to crude oil here. Uh what what do you make of this deterioration? Well, we're just barely holding on to a 58 handle at recording time uh just before the markets open on Thursday morning. Whether or not that holds, I'm not sure. I think midterm to short term, Trump is going to win on his desire for lower oil prices. So, I think we see lower before we see higher, but boy, higher is coming. Just give him time to start the next war or the next escalation in the one of the several wars that we have in different theaters. I'm sure high oil prices are coming back, but not quite yet. I think we've got a little bit of lower before we move higher. Needless to say, timing markets in the short term is dangerous work. So, don't blame me if I got that one wrong. Well, I want to refer back to Inas's uh interview when we had him on in which he has a medium-term or interterm outlook that is bullish on oil, but there's a lot of stress points on the short term. Clearly they have emerged and now uh with this technical breakdown of crude oil I mean we certainly can't even rule out a retest of those April and May lows that sit down in the low50s. Now can crude oil go down there? Of course it can. But the question is is that is it going to be a major buying opportunity down there? And that's where I actually think we may um want to visit that on the short term. The risks are definitely a downside. But I think by November, if we're trading down there, there might be some asymmetric setups for trading oil to the upside. All right, Eric, what are your thoughts on this parabolic move on gold? Well, this seemingly unstoppable rally, even in the face of uh a modest counter trend rally in the Dixie, is nothing to celebrate. As I've said before, yeah, it's it's good for gold investors in the short term, but really gold is not a get-rich asset. It's a stay-rich asset. All it's doing is holding its purchasing power as fiat currency generally is collapsing in value. And that's the big picture of what's happening. I do think that this dollar rally can continue a whole lot higher. But wow, we're overdue for a meaningful correction. And to make no mistake, where this is headed is ultimately toward a blowoff top and a sharp, really heavy, painful reversal to the downside. question is, does that happen out of 4250 or 4850 or 5750 or 12,863? I don't know. We're going to go higher, higher, higher in this crazy euphoric stage of this bull market before it blows off. From what level it blows off, I have no idea, but I'm confident that's what's coming. Well, the interesting thing about gold here, Eric, is that we are in the parabolic phase. When we blew through 4,000 like a hot knife through butter, that was a technical measured move. So, whenever you see an acceleration beyond a measured move, I call those like the parabolic rises. And so, when something goes parabolic, it is actually hard to call where the top will come in because it's just sure buying momentum. Arguably, we could see 4500, even 4700 with this kind of acceleration. But the one thing that is almost for sure is that when it runs out of steam, the correction will actually have uh the type of volatility it's having to the upside the other way on the downside. And so there's going to be a period where wherever we hit a short-term high there, the pullback and is now going to probably be bigger than 300 plus points that we were talking about in the weeks to come. But right now, you can't stand in this thing's way. This is pure momentum. We're going to find out where the blu uh short-term blowoff top will come in, but it certainly can still be at much higher prices. All right, Eric, let's talk uranium. Well, the action is still in the miners, not so much on the spot price of uranium, and that makes sense. What we're seeing here is the speculators who know what's coming are looking for the leverage trades. That's why they're buying the miners first. But we need to see that spot price of uranium move for the sake of confirmation. If we don't, it's going to lead to some people saying, "Oh, wait a minute. It didn't happen like they expected." And that's going to be your trigger as soon as there's another catalyst in the market for a deep and painful correction. Frankly, I I wouldn't mind that deep and painful correction. It's still a buying opportunity. I don't think that this uranium bull market is anywhere close to over, but boy, on a short-term basis, we're really overbought here. There's lots of room to see a correction before we move higher. Well, Eric, there's some extraordinary momentum on those uranium stocks as we now see them uh finish all sorts of measured moves on the upside. To me, the asymmetry lies in trading uranium U308 uh to the upside. Now, I have that futures chart. You can see how it's uh gone through that 15-month bare market and has now merged the other side with old dips being bought. I love this setup on the chart. The way I look at it is I'd much rather be long now uranium the the yellow cake itself and uh and expecting some of these miners to uh have a a breather here at some point after such an extraordinary bull run. Yeah, Eric, let's touch on copper. I think we started from a place of having a really terrific bullish setup for copper from a macro standpoint that has been interrupted once again by Trump tariff. Anything is possible in the short run. Who knows what headline is going to shock copper in one direction or the other next. If it's a shock lower, I say that's a buying opportunity because eventually this Trump tariff policy stuff will blow over and we're still going to have a strong bull fundamental argument for copper. But that fundamental bull argument won't become dominant until the policy stuff that Trump and Bessant are engaged in right now blows over. Let's see how long it takes for that to happen. Well, Eric, copper continues to demonstrate accumulation, higher highs, higher lows. Even the dips we saw here in this week, uh, quickly shoot shooting right back up to the highs. Overall, copper has an upward trajectory, but we are reaching overhead resistance. Almost all the highs outside of the tariff pop uh all came in in this kind of uh 510 to 550 area. Now, doesn't mean we can't have another 25 cent surge higher, but we're going to start seeing uh copper here testing some key overhead resistance levels. See if it puts a short-term lid on the uh upside of copper for the remainder of this year. Patrick, before we wrap up this week's episode, let's hit that 10-year Treasury note chart. >> Yeah, Eric, the 10-year Treasury yield continues to be one of the most interesting charts to me. If you observe here, we're trading at the year lows and uh and it looks like on the verge of a breakdown. And this is the bigger question. Are we seeing a risk off moment in the markets where the bonds are clearly advertising uh that uh that you know a potential dollar rip and risk assets uh being sold? Is this uh the play? One way or another this 4% level was the low back in March, April, and it's also again the low of August. So, the fact that we're testing it, it makes it the thing to watch here. Folks, if you enjoy Patrick's chart decks, you can get them every single day of the week with a free trial of Big Picture Trading. The details are on the last pages of the slide deck, or just go to bigpicturetrading.com. Patrick, tell them what they can expect to find in this week's research roundup. Well, in this week's research roundup, you're going to find the transcript for today's interview. You'll also find the trade of the week chart book that we just discussed here in the postgame, including a number of links to articles that we found interesting. You're going to find this link and so much more in this week's research roundup. That does it for this week's episode. We appreciate all the feedback and support we get from our listeners and we're always looking for suggestions on how we can make the program even better. 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MacroVoices #502 Tian Yang: A Whiff of Reflation?
Summary
Transcript
This is Macrovoices, the free weekly financial podcast targeting professional finance, high- netw worth individuals, family offices, and other sophisticated investors. Macrovoices is all about the brightest minds in the world of finance and macroeconomics telling it like it is. Bullish or bearish, no holds barred. Now, here are your hosts, Eric Townsend and Patrick Szna. Macrovoices episode 502 was produced on October 16th, 2025. I'm Eric Tanzant. Variant Perception CEO Tion Yang returns as this week's feature interview guest. We'll discuss the leading indicators Variant Perception uses to guide their macro strategy, what they say about growth and inflation, and how that translates to trades in today's market. And be sure to stay tuned for our postgame segment after the feature interview because during that feature interview, Tion will explain why he sees a risk for a squeeze higher in the dollar index. Patrick will then translate that to specific actionable trading instructions in our new trade of the week segment right after the feature interview with Tion Young. And I'm Patrick Szno with the macro scoreboard week overweek. As of the close of Wednesday, October 15th, 20125, the S&P 500 index down 121 basis points, trading at 6671, the trade war driven volatility is back, but still has not cracked the market for a bigger correction. We'll take a closer look at that chart and the key technical levels to watch in the postgame segment. The US dollar index down 16 basis points, trading to 9866, consolidating the recent strength. The November WTI crude oil contract down 684 basis points trading at 58.27. A decline is underway, begging the question if the April lows near 50 are in play for the next support line. The November arb gasoline down 681 basis points to 178. The December gold contract up 322 basis points to 4201. Gold is in full parabolic mode right now. The December copper contract down 157 basis points trading at 501. Uranium up 245 basis points trading to 7955. And the US 10-year Treasury yield is down 11 basis points trading at 402 trading near the lows of the year. Now the key news to watch this week is Friday's monthly OPEX rolloff. And beyond that, we have the ongoing government shutdown and impacts on release of key economic data. This week's feature interview guest is variant perception CEO Tien Yang. Eric and Tien discuss global economic outlook, inflation pressures, China, semiconductors, and more. Eric's interview with Tien Yang is coming up as macrovoices continues right here at macrovoices.com. And now with this week's special guest, here's your host, Eric Townsend. Joining me now is Variant Perception CEO, Tion Young. As usual, Tion provided not just one, but two slide decks to download in association with this week's podcast. Registered users will find the download links in your research roundup email. If you don't have a research roundup email, just go to our homepage, macrovoices.com, click the red button above Tion's picture that says looking for the downloads. Tion, it's great to have you back on. Before we get started, we should say probably that we are recording this on Tuesday morning, a couple of days before it will air. This is a week when uh quite a lot has happened since Friday. Needless to say, we're back to President Trump kind of throwing the market some unexpected tape bombs. What's your take on Friday's action and what could happen between now and uh when this airs on Thursday and after that why don't we dive into your leading indicator watch which is the first of your two slide decks. >> Yeah, thanks Eric. Great to be back. Obviously there's a lot of uncertainty but I think the biggest picture remains that the Chinese and the US are ultimately talking right. So compared to when Trump first returned to office compared to liberation day I think there's a lot more established channels of communication. I think the Chinese response has actually been a lot more measured that you know the market's obviously a bit worried about the risk of escalation but compared to 100% tariffs like China's responded with very targeted measures. I wouldn't even be surprised if they maybe gave Trump a warning before they announced it. So overall it kind of feels like there's a bit of posturing you know ahead of the meeting. in the past kind of few weeks and months, you can see China kind of getting prepared for that, right? Strategically lowering their imports of like American agricultural products so they have something to give Trump for the meeting coming up. So I I would say I'm heartened by how measured the Chinese have been in response to this. So that kind of suggests this isn't really the kind of tip for tat extreme escalation we saw back in April. This is ultimately I think going to be a bit more contained. >> Well, I certainly hope that you are correct about that. Let's move into a whiff of reflation, which is the title of your G3 leading indicator watch this month. >> In terms of the the big picture, you know, six-month outlook, we essentially think this is a setup for a potentially reflationary environment. Our macro risk indicators have gone from, you know, when we last spoke a bit more neutral towards more um kind of riskon territory in the last few uh months. Essentially what we see right now is a synchronized global easing cycle amongst all the major central banks. Pretty good improving liquidity conditions, credit creation driven by the private sector and our US growth alias have been pretty resilient all year whilst we're starting to see kind of the first signs of Europe lead indicators recovering and China becoming less bad. So overall that's a pretty uh decent macro setup. Uh at the same time, we think the Fed cut in September potentially is a cut into a nonrecessionary environment. Um so historically there's been a couple of these examples in 84 uh 95 and you know you can also count the September 2024 cut last year and the key takeaway is that you know the Fed cut ends up being an insurance cut puts a bottom under growth and ultimately uh you know growth and inflation uh hold up and um obviously that that broadly leans into the idea that potentially yields and dollar uh kind of find a bottom and actually squeeze a bit higher. Yeah. So that's kind of the biggest kind of you know 3 to six months ahead road map we have right now and that's kind of broadly how we're thinking about it. You know I obviously understand concerns around AI bubbles and and and those things but I would almost phrase it like there's a valuation problem in some pockets of the market maybe but at least on our lead indicators we don't think there's necessarily a huge macro problem right now. Tian, let's dive into your leading indicators starting on page three. >> Like uh like I mentioned, our main US growth lei is still pretty stable at around 2% annualized growth rate. Uh this is pretty much in the ballpark of where most high frequency coincident measures of US growth is. You know, the Fed weekly as we show here, you know, annualized 2.3 2.4%. uh if you strip out the volatile components of GDP now you get at the core underlying private sector part uh that's now at 2.5% annualized growth and you know other high frequency data like you know TSA travel uh you know restaurant booking so forth you know credit card spend most things are fine right now so you know we would characterize as leis you know lead indicators are resilient and constant growth is also resilient >> you're describing an analog to 2002 through 2003 on page for what's the connection there? >> Yeah. So, I think one of the big outliers or or points of concern right now is clearly the US labor market. So, there's a lot of concerns on well is the US labor market weakness, a sign of recession. Um, you know, why is it that retail sales have held up and you know the economyy's held up yet? The job market is so weak. So, we essentially had to look at when was the last time you had this kind of a setup. And so it's very interesting to note uh the last time we we had hiring be this weak but retail sales hold up and start to even accelerate was actually in the 2002 2003 period which was essentially characterized as a jobless economic recovery and and there's a lot of analoges you know in addition to the retail sales divergence you also had a similar kind of uh you know bottoming and acceleration in capital good spending back then against the backdrop of weak hiring. So again you can see the analogies to today with AI capex but but weak jobs and the the liquidity context is also very comparable. So again you've got the weak labor market but back then by 2002 and three you have a a pretty synchronized global easing cycle amongst the major central banks. You have the surging global excess liquidity uh coming out a period of uh cheap um energy prices right you know as as we show here with the kind of draw down in in uh in crude oil prices as well. So all those things actually suggest this is more of a setup you see heading into a recovery uh rather than on the precipice of of a of a recession. The the major structural caveat is obviously to note that back then it was after China joining the WTO in 2001. So there was a pretty structural offshoring of US manufacturing jobs and obviously that is something that uh isn't going to be happening today. Right? So ultimately that kind of suggests there's less of a structural reason why the job market uh is going to remain weak like back then. You know there's some underlying signs for the US labor market is decent. For example, you know, prime age participation rate is has recovered back to a pretty healthy level. So ultimately we would think this is more likely a setup heading into a recovery and if there's a recovery eventually that will result in a turnaround of labor market again just like we saw in 0203. I can't help but react to the headline on page five. Recession is unlikely. If everyone disses and financial conditions are loose, so as long as everybody spins beyond their means into easy money, everything's going to be fine. >> Um yeah, I mean the way we think about recessions is ultimately these are like phase shifts, right? where you go from a pretty normal cyclical behavior in the economy towards the sudden shift when the hard economic data and the soft kind of financial market data start deteriorating at the same time. The the real reason to worry about recessions is those times when you know financial assets start selling off which then leads to kind of precautionary behavior. you know households maybe save more but as a result you know earnings start falling companies lay off more workers and these vicious cycles are formed and you know I think that window of vulnerability was actually a bit more elevated if you think back to like May and June when equity markets had drawn down there was a bit more signs of financial market stress and obviously the the economic data was kind of uh stalling the difference today is that you know some of the things we measure here like real M1 in the top left chart here has returned to growth so US real narrow money growth uh real narrow money is growing. We obviously still have a pretty big absolute fiscal uh deficit. The US household savings rate had been rising uh but it start has started actually rolling over again. So again households are continuing to to you know keep a low savings rate and obviously financial assets are still near alltime highs right like you know obviously it's been you know a couple of days since the the Trump uh tweet. So this is not to say that there's no risk per se. Our US recession model risk is around 30%. So lowish but not zero. The reason it's low is because of US housing and labor. But but the key thing that would make it jump higher is that ultimately the time to worry is when say S&P draws down 5 to 10%. And then you get a bad job print, right? that's the time when these feedback loops could potentially start and both deteriorate at the same time and it gets a lot more concerning about the phase shift to recession. As of right now, that isn't really the case. Um, you know, we can see how the how this um kind of, you know, China US trade war escalation plays out, but I think that that's the key point I want to make on this. >> John, moving on to page six. It looks like you're anticipating the potential for an inventory rebuilding cycle. >> Yeah. So again on that theme of we more likely heading to a slowdown or recovery there's some typical signs you actually see going into a recovery right now. Um so on the the consumer side one of the things we we we're showing here is that the bank bank's willingness to make consumer loans has actually been improving and historically this leads the uh US kind of credit delinquency rates for consumers. So again this will be a sign that delinquency rates have likely peaked in the US. Uh equally if you look at US discretionary retail sales uh which we define as kind of those you know big ticket items furniture home furnishing electronics uh clothing and the like uh again that's had a a pretty target couple of years and been forming a base and has actually already returned to growth. So again something you you you see more out of a slowdown than heading into one on the wholesale side. If you look at durable goods wholesale uh revenues that's actually started to accelerate even as inventory growth uh remains kind of tepid. So again something you see more out of a out of a slowdown than heading into one. And finally within the ISM survey there's this very interesting subcomponent called customer inventories and that's something where uh you know you can see the red line at the bottom right chart there it's actually low and has been falling. So i.e. you know within ISM survey people reporting that their customers have low inventories and have falling inventories. So again these are more signs of the potential for recovery than not. Overall we get that the labor market looks a bit weak but you're not getting that much confirmation elsewhere. >> Moving on to page seven. Let's take a look at inflation pressures. >> Yeah. So I think the the the headline on inflation is that we are going to be above target for a while but the risk of a second wave remains relatively low for now. uh in you know I think ultimately probably around 3% annualized uh inflation in terms of the key data to keep our eye on. Uh one thing we're tracking very closely is actually um PPI and import prices which is the top right chart here. So you can kind of see PPI for both goods and services are settling in just below 3%. This is obviously a measure of how much pass through pressure that will ultimately need to be on consumer prices and equally import prices are a reflection of um you know our our kind of foreign suppliers ultimately eating eating the the tariffs which the answer is no right now. So I think we're a little bit at a point where yeah there'll be some moderate pass through pressure on the inflation front uh but you know PPI is not surging factors like you know cheap energy prices and the like have likely helped there as well and ultimately what determines the ability to pass through price increases is actually lower income consumers right which we know have been struggling a lot more so you know the the rate of pass through will tend to be more moderate in general you can think about the top 20% of consumers as driving growth and the bottom 20% health as being important for how much inflation pass through there is. So right now it kind of looks like there's some moderate you know input cost pressures to pass through in general uh but it'll be pass through at a more moderate rate. >> Let's move on to China on page eight. >> I think what's very interesting China the price action has obviously been pretty uh reflationary so far. You know we show here that Chinese small caps have been surging relative to large caps. you know, Chinese 10year yields are finally bottom and started to tick up. And you're actually seeing the very first signs of things going from terrible to slightly less terrible. Uh, you know, the bottom right chart there showing a essentially employment PMI survey for China, private sector one, and it has gone from kind of very depression-like levels and started to recover. uh so broadly speaking you know we would say that China overall doesn't look as bad as it's been and at the same time lead indicators of in of both growth and inflation have bottom has started to recover so overall um you know we're heading into kind of the uh the fourth platum now there's a lot more of talk about they you know the Chinese authorities need to do some more for the for the consumption side uh so yeah I would say macro tailwinds are still there uh for China and obviously I'm making an assumption that Trump and she will ultimately meet and you know try and announce a win for each other but within that context the macro setup looks okay economy going from bad to slightly less bad liquidities tailwinds are good and asset prices broadly are on board with the the kind of recovery story >> let's move on to the Euro zone on page 10 >> yeah on Euro specifically what's very interesting is that you know Europe's structural problems are well known right from the political dysfunction to you know elevated energy prices we show here on page 10 the bottom right there's a lot of problems but what's very interesting is that we're actually seeing a bit of a recovery our lead indicators and some of the underlying data for the first time in a very long time essentially you know over the past three three to four years you're really starting to see a more kind of uh coordinated recovery in the German data so for example the German IFO expectations minus current conditions that differential is actually turning turning positive now for the first time in a very long time. You know, we see that in the top right chart there on slide 10. Uh the percentage German manufacturing industries where production expectations are uh improving. Again, that's that's kind of recovered to more than half. So, we potentially have the potent have a little bit of a cyclical uh rebound coming in Europe. Again, I think the structural problems are real. So the magnitude might not be there, but you're kind of finally seeing this come through, you know, on on the back of some of the excitement around German fiscal as well. >> John, let's touch on slide 11. Consensus too optimistic on disinflation. >> Uh yeah, so on on Europe, I think it's worth pointing out that the the market, the ECB obviously was a bit further ahead of the of the US in getting their um rate cuts in um and policy rates being taken down to 2%. I would say the consensus is fairly relaxed on European inflation risks. But it's interesting to note that our estim. The neutral policy rate the real neutral policy rate is actually 0.8 which is a bit towards the higher end I would say of you know consensus of where ECB is. So that would actually suggest that uh you know the neutral nominal policy rate right now is is more closer to like 3%. Uh rather than two. So we suspect that if anything ECB policy is actually towards uh slightly more stimulatory uh territory you know the market is obviously focused on the France risk right now is trying to price some cuts in but if you look at the the bulk of the arrival curve right we got in the bottom right there you know ultimately there are now hikes discounted for uh 2026 2027 and it's hard to price a lot more in for next year. So given the ECB is ready to put the cuts in, given the very first signs of some of those cyclical leading indicator recoveries, uh, you know, the risk reward probably actually favors, you know, slightly more reflation in Europe and positioning for that. >> Tiana, I wanted to start there with the leading indicators because that's what variant perception is best known for. You also sent us a second PDF titled macro snapshot October 2nd. Tell us what that deck is about and go ahead and dive in. Yeah. So that's kind of more the investment implications in terms of trade ideas or asset allocation. Obviously, you know, using our lead indicators for uh kind of the six months for a macro context. Um so obviously a lot of the the elements we kind of already touched on. So maybe the key things I want to highlight here is uh if we go to like slice six and seven that's probably the most important and then we can talk about commodities as well. So I think right now you know one of the concerns that even if uh there isn't necessarily as obvious signs of macro problems clearly there's some concerns around the lack of risk premium in asset classes right whether you look at credit spreads or US large cap equities so it's natural to be a bit concerned about have we fully discounted uh this relatively benign macro outlook and you know the way we think you can deal with it is that we have two very tangible signposts to watch uh for a sign that a correction may be playing out. And in fact, obviously, we put this on October 2nd. We actually had a a a kind of hedging signal October 8th, which was fortuitous timing. But um but essentially that there's two things to to think about. The first is, you know, during periods like this, what we want to be very focused on is how crosset volatility and uh just credit and credit linked are trading in general. Normally um when a a correction potentially starts what you observe is that all volatility across asset classes start to tick up from the lows and all different measures of credit start to deteriorate. The key is the the kind of breath of it and and the simultaneous nature of it rather than the magnitude. So if they all deteriorate at the same time that tends to be more reflective of the beginning of a broader derisking. Um and so that's one of the the key things to keep an eye on. and we're kind of starting to see kind of inklings of that a little bit. Um, so that's just a very market behavioral stuff. You know, we formalized it into the the kind of VP correction signal. We have various versions of kind of tactical hedging uh signals right now. So it does make sense to uh keep some tactical hedges for the month of October. Uh you know this is the bulk of earning season. We have the Fed at the end of the month. Um and we also obviously have the Trump uh she meeting end of the month as well. So there's quite a lot of catalyst. that likely means that imply will remain bid. So you're you're a lot less less likely to bleed uh as much as normal. So that that's kind of the the overall thinking there on the tactical piece of the portfolio. In terms of the the cyclical road map and the signpost to watch for, one of the the key worries right now is that the Fed cuts may become interpreted by the markets political as reflecting Trump's desire for uh more cuts to lower interest expenses. And that works and works until it doesn't. We just don't know when. But the the the sign from the market will be that at one of these upcoming Fed cuts, it's possible we see the yo-yo curve kind of have a sharp bass steepening in response to one of the cuts. And that will be, you know, a marketbased sign that okay, we've kind of hit the limit here and then, you know, they probably need to pull back a little bit. Um, so I think that's something I'm watching for very closely. I don't know when. I mean, it could be even the October Fed cut the market has that reaction, but obviously it could be January or whenever it is. Um, and I think that's just something to bear in mind that I think we have this pretty decent macro goldilock setup until the Fed overd does it and cuts too much and then inflation fears pick up and then time premium all these things matter again. Um, so those are like the two tangible things uh right now to to watch for. >> Let's touch on semiconductors on page seven. >> Uh, yeah. So obviously you know talk of the town AI bubble right you know mental energy is being kind of spent on this already. So again, we're not going to pretend to be like the AI experts, but we do have some general frameworks we use to think about this. Uh the key one being our capital cycle framework. And so ultimately on our capital cycle framework, what it tries to do is it tries to understand kind of capex and R&D spend, what the marginal operational ROIC is for that spend, and ultimately how that translates into profit. But we do it kind of across the entire aggregated profit pool. So what's been what is more interesting to us is that on our capital cycle models is actually software that has been relatively weak within tech. Um semis have actually seen improving capital cycle while hardware has been kind of deteriorating slowly but software is kind of the weakest. Um so you know despite all the to you know I think it's understandable a lot of the concerns around you know com repeat dark fiber or the rail buildout like a lot of those things are valid u but timing wise typically the sequence we would expect to see is that you know we need to see the marginal operational ROI start to come off a bit and then the capital cycle score will will deteriorate a lot. So far only one of the pieces are in place which is essentially the surge in capex but for a lot of the AIcentric stuff for the profit pool as a whole um the the the kind of marginal returns are still significantly higher than the weighted average cost of capital. Um obviously these things will shift as assumptions around useful life depreciation schedules you know vendor financing all these things will eventually show up in how you know the the weighted average cost of capital is calculated. But it's just worth highlighting a high level that you know at least right now you know the industry is covering the cost of capital is actually profitable and so it may be a little bit early to be worrying about um the surge in capex. >> Let's touch on commodities on page 11. >> Yeah. So I think the last thing that I think is very interesting is that we have a pretty unambiguously bullish commodity uh setup uh with with our models as well. The demand, supply and balance models are suggesting quite strongly for a commodity recovery cyclically and obviously structurally the backdrop should be pretty favorable where we are moving to a more a world of kind of great power competition, right? Supply chains, commodities are being used and weaponized in geopolitics and you have not just cyclical recovery but also kind of more price insensitive industrial policy driven or politically driven demand potential as well. So it's a pretty good setup for commodities in general now that gold prices in real terms have surged back towards kind of the 19 you know 70s 1980s high the the you know it's really about whether the other things can start to catch up as we show on the top right hand chart here. So broadly I think you know overall for the complex we we think the upside is still very very good. Um the lagard is probably going to be oil this time just because of you know OPEC and supply and obviously some of the political imperatives around you know keeping inflation contained but I think industrial commodities and the like the capture potentials is very good and and ultimately obviously we'll get recovery in uh in oil as well. >> John for the last few minutes let's zoom out to this big picture that everybody's trying to figure out. Seems like just last Friday, China was absolutely evil and uh you know was the end of the world and then all of a sudden they're best friends again. Is this just a part of the Donald Trump approach to diplomacy and what should we expect next? >> Uh yeah, so I think the the biggest picture here is actually something we laid out all the way back in 2022 when we wrote a kind of pretty big thematic report on the coming capex super cycle. you know the end of the invisible hand uh you know essentially the end of kind of free market driven you know let's say fair glo you know globalization right and I think this is kind of the biggest context uh for that basically the US and the Chinese systems are moving from a focus on profit and efficiency towards the need for resilience but you know efficiency can you know the flip side of resilience essentially inefficiency right you're going to duplicate supply chains you're going to stockp more inventories, uh, you know, you're going to change how resources are allocated. And so, I still think that's kind of what what is really going on and having to manage that process. Um, at the same time, there's, you know, with with the great power dynamics kicking in here, there's obviously a lot of, you know, lessons from history we can learn. So I think for me a very useful context to think about is actually more the you know US period would be kind of World War II into like like the 50s with FDR and essentially the the Arsenal of democracy kind of analogy. So what that ultimately means is that when you have very important um kind of national policy imperatives you you need to start thinking about the government's balance sheet and the private sector balance sheet as just one thing one national balance sheet. So in FDR example I cited you know that was like getting you know private sector to build your tanks and planes and to fuel the war effort right and then later on uh you know coordinating between private and public sector in the cold war and this is essentially the playbook China has taken for uh quite a while right in terms of how China coordinates their private sector uh with government policy to drive a lot of you know industrial policy imperatives national policy imperatives so I think that's kind of the the biggest picture context effects that we are just moving towards a world that you know both countries want to emphasize uh resilience, supply chain resilience and this this idea of like to compete you kind of need to start coordinating a lot more in terms of big business big government working together and obviously broadly speaking like most of the the marginal news we see uh leans into that story right uh all all year long so I think that's kind of the where ultimately both sides want to end up and then they just have to manage is a transition uh in the middle, right? So, and this is where I think there's a realization that leverage is becoming in in my opinion at least a bit more balanced. So, I think the US probably does not have as strong a leverage as the US thought in terms of tech sanctions uh on China, right? the the the rapid pace of Chinese uh tech development I think has probably surprised the US side and equally I think the US side might have underestimated the kind of short-term rare earth uh choke point again in the long in the long term rare doesn't matter right like you know rare are not that rare it's kind of abundant you just have to be able to refine it but in the short term obviously China has the refining capacity and so they need to play that card while they can so I would say that's kind of where because the leverage is a bit more balanced heading into kind the the Trump sheet meeting they can obviously try and position uh but ultimately I think as I mentioned right at the beginning of this uh meeting that the the structural direction is set right both countries know they need to build up resilience from each other um and just to you know prioritize domestic national needs but they don't want to have such a dramatic uh kind of divorce that that the short-term pains too much and so that's why all these communication channels have been established you know, since Liberation Day and and they're going to and they're likely talking and so I think you'll just keep getting these nominal wins that both sides can announce to their domestic audience, avoid the worst of the disruption, but ultimately the trend is really towards, you know, trying to build up essentially economic nationalism and resilience in terms of supply chains and manufacturing. >> Tion, as always, I can't thank you enough for a terrific interview. Before I let you go, tell us a little bit more about the work that you do at Variant Perception, what services are on offer for our institutional investors and where people can follow your work. >> Yeah, well, thanks for having me on as usual. So, you know, varantsperception.com uh you know, we can share a link for some of your listeners as well if they're interested in getting some more materials or to have um some access to our portal. But essentially, you know, we focus on building uh investment models, right? modeling the economy, modeling asset classes, modeling uh market behaviors and modeling long-term uh structural capital cycles and then from those models we will find outliers or interesting investment themes contextualize those in terms of the news and price action and flag ideas. Patrick Szna and I will be back as macrovoices continues right here at macrovoices.com. Now back to your hosts, Eric Townsend and Patrick Serezna. >> Eric, it was great to have Tian back on the show. Well, listeners, you're going to find the download link for the postgame trade of the week in your research roundup email. If you don't have a research roundup email, that means you have not yet registered at macrovoices.com. Just go to our homepage, macrovoices.com, and click on the red button over Ten's pictures saying, "Looking for the downloads." Patrick, we're getting great feedback on our new trade of the week segment. What's on deck this week? >> Eric, let's go a little deeper into the dollar story because this ties directly into what Tien discussed in the interview. He made a strong case for the US resilience, sticky inflation, strong growth, and a Fed that's easing into strength rather than weakness. All of which sets the stage for a potential dollar squeeze higher. Now, what makes this setup particularly interesting right now is that the implied volatility on the Euro futures has collapsed to year-to-ate lows. I have a chart on page two showing this. We are currently around 6.6% down from roughly 9% earlier this year. That tells us the markets completely priced for calm and stability. And when volatility is priced this cheap, the asymmetry shifts in our favor. Why? Because the carry cost of being long options is lower. The marginal Vega risk to the downside is limited and you retain the potential for a Vega tailwind if a macro event forces risk premium back into the market. In other words, this is a perfect environment to own convexity. So rather than trying to express the dollar strength through a linear short on the EuroUSD or an outright futures short, I'd rather do it in a convex way where my downside is fixed but my upside is open if something breaks. Now here's the trade. by the March 6, 2026 Euro futures put option at the one spot 1750 strike, which is essentially at the money for 198 pips, which is essentially at the money for 198 pips with the March 2026 Euro futures trading at one spot 11745 at the time of this quote. In practical terms, that's 198 pips or $2,475 per contract. And it gives you the right to be short the euro at the one spot 1750 over the next five months. You'll pay a small defined premium to own pure gamma clean convex exposure in the market that's completely complacent on volatility. Those of you that want to visually see a breakdown of this trade, it is on page three of this week's trade of the week download. The beauty of this structure is that you don't need a crystal ball or a specific catalyst. Any macro event, a policy surprise, inflation shock, or geopolitical flare up that pushes the dollar higher can create an outsides move uh relative to the premium at risk. For perspective, even a 50% retracement of this year's euro advance would take the pair back to around 112 where the option would be sitting on over 500 pips of intrinsic value. On the flip side, if the dollar bare market continues, your risk is clearly defined. You lose the premium and walk away. But the way I see it, you're paying a small insurance premium to own convexi on a currency market that is priced for perfection. And that's a trade I'll take every single time. Patrick, that explanation worked for the pros. And of course, our retail audience can get the full briefing by attending Patrick's Monday webinar, which always dissects the trade of the week in detail. Macrovoic's listeners can get a free trial at bigpicturetrading.com. Eric, let's dive into this. Let's what's your thoughts here on the markets? Well, Patrick, remember what I've said before, which is the Trump tariff turbulence that we went through several weeks ago was not going to be the last round. Needless to say, the next round is already upon us. And I don't think this next round will be the last round either. What happens next in the immediate term is going to depend on the headlines. Be ready to be whipsawed in either direction by Trump policy announcements. It's very clear that President Trump is not concerned about the short-term impacts on financial markets as a result of his uh strong policy choices. Moving back or stepping out to the bigger macro picture, I think where we are is in the misleading early phase of a secular inflation. Secular inflations always start out looking beautiful. It seems like everything's running hot, the economy is strong, everything's growing, it all looks great. It's actually just the beginning of the inflation and the negative feedback loops haven't kicked in yet. So, I think that's the big picture of what's happening uh for the economy. As far as what the market does next, it'll be headline driven. Let's see what Trump and Bessant dish out next. Well, Eric, we finally got ourselves a market correction. It was a very fast rapid one-day peakto trough, 4% market drop that directly tested the 50-day moving average. So, how do we size up the conditions of marketable? First of all, we have the options expiration this week, which uh if the market stays within these major strikes, the g there's a lot of dealer pinning that happens just from the natural order flow of all that gamma that they have on the books. So, the market consolidating here this week. It would is not abnormal. But the big question here is that with this new rise of volatility, we're talking about a VIX that is now at 20 plus on the upside. At the same time, we have market breath deteriorating which I have on page five. You can see that we hit a low of around 36% uh on the downside. We're bounced back about 47% but we have majority of stocks actually in a downtrend already selling. Now what is a positive for the markets? Well, the bank earnings started to roll out and they all had positive reactions on it. I was looking at whether or not the financials would uh diverge and show that deterioration, but they've at least shown a little bit of strength. Now, for me, this is a very simple trade right now. Consider the bulls to be in control of this market above that 50-day moving average with 6,600 sitting right at there and the low of the market coming around 6,600 from uh earlier in the week. This is a logical place to watch for a break. Uh if we break down below there, we could see all sorts of systematic selling weather ball targeting funds, CTAs, and even uh dealer gamma exposure that could start becoming a feedback mechanism that accelerates the downside air pocket. But right now, the market is not in that danger zone. So, let's see whether that technical breakdown actually gets underway. So, Eric, let's move on to the dollar. What are your thoughts? Well, we tested the high end of the consolidation range. haven't seen the breakout yet that uh that Tion seems to be anticipating and it's very much consistent with the tariff tantrum. We we've seen this uh you know bouncing up and down. Needless to say, we what Trump just said was dollar bullish. That means we're going to test the high end of the consolidation range. We haven't broken out of it yet. I also want to comment that the strong rally in gold reminds us what's going on here with this US dollar strength is relative to other currencies only. The big picture is fiat currency overall is debasing badly against hard assets. That's what's being reflected by the fact that gold is strong here even in the face of short-term dollar strength. The next few policy headlines are going to determine what the Dixie does next as a relative strength indicator relative to other currencies. But again, dollar up, gold up at the same time is a very important reminder that the Dixie is a relative, not absolute measure. And the big trade here, the big picture trade is dollar down or all fiat currencies down and hard assets including gold up. Well, for me, the dollar is showing relative strength in the last few weeks, and this is an important thing to watch whether it is bought on dip and whether we can stay above the 50-day moving average here. The entire US dollar bare market that happened this year has pretty much sustained uh below the 50-day moving average for pretty much almost 9 months. And so now uh uh with us pivoting here will this be showing the price action that in fact the dollar has room to actually counter trend uh like we were talking about even through the interview. Now for me it's a lot about the different pairings. The euro broke down below the 50-day moving average. The pound sterling's been weak. That US dollar yen ripped to the upside after the elections. The US dollar CAD has broken out and remains at multimonth highs. So there's a backdrop that you can really see where US dollar strength can come from. So will uh we see some sort of a breakout here that really gets this underway where we could see a dollar move up to 101 to even 103 on the upside. Certainly uh a really interesting moment in the dollar here. So let's move on to crude oil here. Uh what what do you make of this deterioration? Well, we're just barely holding on to a 58 handle at recording time uh just before the markets open on Thursday morning. Whether or not that holds, I'm not sure. I think midterm to short term, Trump is going to win on his desire for lower oil prices. So, I think we see lower before we see higher, but boy, higher is coming. Just give him time to start the next war or the next escalation in the one of the several wars that we have in different theaters. I'm sure high oil prices are coming back, but not quite yet. I think we've got a little bit of lower before we move higher. Needless to say, timing markets in the short term is dangerous work. So, don't blame me if I got that one wrong. Well, I want to refer back to Inas's uh interview when we had him on in which he has a medium-term or interterm outlook that is bullish on oil, but there's a lot of stress points on the short term. Clearly they have emerged and now uh with this technical breakdown of crude oil I mean we certainly can't even rule out a retest of those April and May lows that sit down in the low50s. Now can crude oil go down there? Of course it can. But the question is is that is it going to be a major buying opportunity down there? And that's where I actually think we may um want to visit that on the short term. The risks are definitely a downside. But I think by November, if we're trading down there, there might be some asymmetric setups for trading oil to the upside. All right, Eric, what are your thoughts on this parabolic move on gold? Well, this seemingly unstoppable rally, even in the face of uh a modest counter trend rally in the Dixie, is nothing to celebrate. As I've said before, yeah, it's it's good for gold investors in the short term, but really gold is not a get-rich asset. It's a stay-rich asset. All it's doing is holding its purchasing power as fiat currency generally is collapsing in value. And that's the big picture of what's happening. I do think that this dollar rally can continue a whole lot higher. But wow, we're overdue for a meaningful correction. And to make no mistake, where this is headed is ultimately toward a blowoff top and a sharp, really heavy, painful reversal to the downside. question is, does that happen out of 4250 or 4850 or 5750 or 12,863? I don't know. We're going to go higher, higher, higher in this crazy euphoric stage of this bull market before it blows off. From what level it blows off, I have no idea, but I'm confident that's what's coming. Well, the interesting thing about gold here, Eric, is that we are in the parabolic phase. When we blew through 4,000 like a hot knife through butter, that was a technical measured move. So, whenever you see an acceleration beyond a measured move, I call those like the parabolic rises. And so, when something goes parabolic, it is actually hard to call where the top will come in because it's just sure buying momentum. Arguably, we could see 4500, even 4700 with this kind of acceleration. But the one thing that is almost for sure is that when it runs out of steam, the correction will actually have uh the type of volatility it's having to the upside the other way on the downside. And so there's going to be a period where wherever we hit a short-term high there, the pullback and is now going to probably be bigger than 300 plus points that we were talking about in the weeks to come. But right now, you can't stand in this thing's way. This is pure momentum. We're going to find out where the blu uh short-term blowoff top will come in, but it certainly can still be at much higher prices. All right, Eric, let's talk uranium. Well, the action is still in the miners, not so much on the spot price of uranium, and that makes sense. What we're seeing here is the speculators who know what's coming are looking for the leverage trades. That's why they're buying the miners first. But we need to see that spot price of uranium move for the sake of confirmation. If we don't, it's going to lead to some people saying, "Oh, wait a minute. It didn't happen like they expected." And that's going to be your trigger as soon as there's another catalyst in the market for a deep and painful correction. Frankly, I I wouldn't mind that deep and painful correction. It's still a buying opportunity. I don't think that this uranium bull market is anywhere close to over, but boy, on a short-term basis, we're really overbought here. There's lots of room to see a correction before we move higher. Well, Eric, there's some extraordinary momentum on those uranium stocks as we now see them uh finish all sorts of measured moves on the upside. To me, the asymmetry lies in trading uranium U308 uh to the upside. Now, I have that futures chart. You can see how it's uh gone through that 15-month bare market and has now merged the other side with old dips being bought. I love this setup on the chart. The way I look at it is I'd much rather be long now uranium the the yellow cake itself and uh and expecting some of these miners to uh have a a breather here at some point after such an extraordinary bull run. Yeah, Eric, let's touch on copper. I think we started from a place of having a really terrific bullish setup for copper from a macro standpoint that has been interrupted once again by Trump tariff. Anything is possible in the short run. Who knows what headline is going to shock copper in one direction or the other next. If it's a shock lower, I say that's a buying opportunity because eventually this Trump tariff policy stuff will blow over and we're still going to have a strong bull fundamental argument for copper. But that fundamental bull argument won't become dominant until the policy stuff that Trump and Bessant are engaged in right now blows over. Let's see how long it takes for that to happen. Well, Eric, copper continues to demonstrate accumulation, higher highs, higher lows. Even the dips we saw here in this week, uh, quickly shoot shooting right back up to the highs. Overall, copper has an upward trajectory, but we are reaching overhead resistance. Almost all the highs outside of the tariff pop uh all came in in this kind of uh 510 to 550 area. Now, doesn't mean we can't have another 25 cent surge higher, but we're going to start seeing uh copper here testing some key overhead resistance levels. See if it puts a short-term lid on the uh upside of copper for the remainder of this year. Patrick, before we wrap up this week's episode, let's hit that 10-year Treasury note chart. >> Yeah, Eric, the 10-year Treasury yield continues to be one of the most interesting charts to me. If you observe here, we're trading at the year lows and uh and it looks like on the verge of a breakdown. And this is the bigger question. Are we seeing a risk off moment in the markets where the bonds are clearly advertising uh that uh that you know a potential dollar rip and risk assets uh being sold? Is this uh the play? One way or another this 4% level was the low back in March, April, and it's also again the low of August. So, the fact that we're testing it, it makes it the thing to watch here. Folks, if you enjoy Patrick's chart decks, you can get them every single day of the week with a free trial of Big Picture Trading. The details are on the last pages of the slide deck, or just go to bigpicturetrading.com. Patrick, tell them what they can expect to find in this week's research roundup. Well, in this week's research roundup, you're going to find the transcript for today's interview. You'll also find the trade of the week chart book that we just discussed here in the postgame, including a number of links to articles that we found interesting. You're going to find this link and so much more in this week's research roundup. That does it for this week's episode. We appreciate all the feedback and support we get from our listeners and we're always looking for suggestions on how we can make the program even better. 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