WEBVTT 00:00:00.210 --> 00:00:03.870 It does seem like there's so much optimism stars are aligned, especially 00:00:03.870 --> 00:00:07.349 with Trump saying, you know what, the war is ending or, you know, we're done 00:00:07.349 --> 00:00:10.379 with this. We've had him say that about 49 times 00:00:10.679 --> 00:00:13.080 since the war started. Some say even like five times in the 00:00:13.080 --> 00:00:17.190 last nine weeks. Why should we care and do we care? 00:00:17.429 --> 00:00:22.259 Not really, because I think that, yes, we care if oil prices were to really go 00:00:22.260 --> 00:00:24.990 parabolic. But I think that the big story and 00:00:24.989 --> 00:00:28.919 that's very clear even from the opening remarks from your team, is that this is 00:00:28.920 --> 00:00:32.579 all about A.I., Right? That's what's really driving markets 00:00:32.820 --> 00:00:34.710 around the world. If you look at even relative 00:00:34.710 --> 00:00:41.130 performance, it's all about A.I.. So just stepping back a bit that 00:00:41.280 --> 00:00:45.030 something similar happened last year, which is that we were all obsessed with 00:00:45.030 --> 00:00:48.689 that it's on the news front and yet that it did go up. 00:00:49.229 --> 00:00:53.279 But people forgot about that story because it was superseded by the 00:00:54.329 --> 00:00:57.600 amount of CapEx which is happening as far as air is concerned. 00:00:57.840 --> 00:01:01.410 Something similar is going on this year, which is that, yes, oil prices have gone 00:01:01.409 --> 00:01:04.530 up. They have settled at a much higher 00:01:04.709 --> 00:01:08.760 plateau even after the decline over the last day or two. 00:01:09.150 --> 00:01:15.300 But the AI boom is just so much bigger that it's swamping all other effects. 00:01:15.299 --> 00:01:18.090 So it's very hard to look as to what happened with the tariffs, which were 00:01:18.090 --> 00:01:22.950 the negative, that the average tariff rate in America today 00:01:23.280 --> 00:01:27.480 is much higher than what it was. Even though people talk about Trump 00:01:27.480 --> 00:01:30.990 having walked back and stuff, which is true, but it was two and a half percent. 00:01:30.989 --> 00:01:36.000 The average tariff rate before Trump started the escalation on the trade war. 00:01:36.299 --> 00:01:40.530 And even after he pulled back, we settled at about 10% or so, very 00:01:40.530 --> 00:01:44.939 significantly higher from where we were. And yet the markets and the economy 00:01:45.120 --> 00:01:48.420 withstood all of that, mainly because of the EIA boom. 00:01:48.659 --> 00:01:52.170 Same thing is happening this year that oil prices are higher, but because this 00:01:52.530 --> 00:01:57.299 boom is so powerful, the companies just keep increasing CapEx. 00:01:57.329 --> 00:02:02.789 Everyone's convinced that the world is moving towards is the future that that's 00:02:02.790 --> 00:02:04.920 all that markets seem to care about. Interesting. 00:02:04.920 --> 00:02:10.169 You talk about parabolic and we have seen parabolic moves before like gold, 00:02:10.169 --> 00:02:14.189 silver and even oil to to some extent a moment in time, 00:02:15.240 --> 00:02:18.900 but never at this scale. The question really is how long can this 00:02:18.900 --> 00:02:20.969 last? I mean, the momentum, the rally can't go 00:02:20.969 --> 00:02:23.069 on forever. What are the catalysts you're looking 00:02:23.069 --> 00:02:25.709 at? So like I framed this in like three 00:02:25.710 --> 00:02:28.260 ways, really. One, that if you look at history, the 00:02:28.259 --> 00:02:33.719 last 300 years, every single technological innovation has been 00:02:33.719 --> 00:02:37.919 accompanied by a financial bubble, every single know from the railroads to the 00:02:37.919 --> 00:02:43.049 Internet, canals, whatever you look at it, it's all been accompanied always by 00:02:43.199 --> 00:02:45.839 a financial bubble. Because when you have a great 00:02:45.840 --> 00:02:48.780 technological breakthrough, it's fantastic for the world. 00:02:48.780 --> 00:02:52.650 That's what the world progress is on. But it leads to a huge amount of over 00:02:52.650 --> 00:02:56.010 excitement. Companies invest and then they 00:02:56.009 --> 00:03:00.060 overinvest. And so that's how it goes on. 00:03:00.060 --> 00:03:04.800 But there are two lessons to this. One, that very rarely do these 00:03:04.800 --> 00:03:08.340 companies, which are investing and are making money on their investment because 00:03:08.340 --> 00:03:11.789 they typically overinvest, it's the consumer that ends up making money. 00:03:12.030 --> 00:03:15.810 And the second most important thing is this and we learned this in 300 years of 00:03:15.810 --> 00:03:21.120 looking at bubbles, that the consistent factor which pricks the bubbles is that 00:03:21.120 --> 00:03:25.680 when you have higher interest rates until you have high interest rates or 00:03:25.680 --> 00:03:29.219 some sort of a liquidity event which tightens 00:03:30.629 --> 00:03:35.430 money in the market place, bubbles don't just burst under their own weight. 00:03:35.909 --> 00:03:39.090 So I think that's what that's the zone we're currently in, that interest rates 00:03:39.090 --> 00:03:41.400 are pretty stable across much of the world. 00:03:41.789 --> 00:03:44.729 I'm watching the ten year in the US obsessively. 00:03:45.180 --> 00:03:51.629 It's not, you know, in a any sort of a major breakout, it's stuck between four 00:03:51.629 --> 00:03:53.359 and four and a half percent. Now. 00:03:53.400 --> 00:03:58.080 The tenure in the US to get to 5% or more, that's when I think that you would 00:03:58.080 --> 00:04:01.350 begin to get people asking questions, What's my return on investment? 00:04:01.650 --> 00:04:04.950 How much are going to make out of all this massive CapEx I'm spending? 00:04:05.219 --> 00:04:10.639 Until then, this arms race goes on. So, yes, this is a bubble. 00:04:10.770 --> 00:04:15.780 When I look at the like, I have four criteria to try and map out if we have a 00:04:15.780 --> 00:04:19.870 bubble or not. It deals with overvaluation over 00:04:19.949 --> 00:04:23.189 investment, over leverage and over ownership. 00:04:23.189 --> 00:04:28.230 The falls that I call them on most of these, for us, this is quite 00:04:28.230 --> 00:04:30.420 advanced. Now you can argue that we not that 00:04:30.600 --> 00:04:35.730 leverage the balance sheet of these companies which are in overinvesting 00:04:35.730 --> 00:04:37.890 now. They are still doing it out of the cash 00:04:37.889 --> 00:04:39.539 flows. The debt they're taking is still 00:04:39.540 --> 00:04:44.250 relatively small, but apart from that, we are overvalued. 00:04:44.490 --> 00:04:50.129 On most metrics, we are overawed. I mean, 60% of American households today 00:04:50.730 --> 00:04:54.689 have exposure to the equity market for the highest in the world. 00:04:54.689 --> 00:04:58.139 Actually, it's the highest in the world. And in fact, America is the only country 00:04:58.350 --> 00:05:03.070 where people. Have more of their wealth in the stock 00:05:03.069 --> 00:05:06.670 market than it did even in the property market, which includes their own homes, 00:05:07.000 --> 00:05:10.660 typically in China or other places. The it's the other way around. 00:05:10.670 --> 00:05:13.900 People are five times more wealth in the property market, in the stock market. 00:05:14.170 --> 00:05:19.000 So this is a very extended bull market. But having said that, as I said, that as 00:05:19.000 --> 00:05:23.350 long as interest rates are low and interest rates I see are low because 00:05:23.529 --> 00:05:26.079 there are about three and a half percent, 4%, what do we think of the 00:05:26.079 --> 00:05:29.859 short interest rates? But nominal GDP growth is much higher, 00:05:30.009 --> 00:05:32.050 you know, like it's running at four or 5%. 00:05:32.949 --> 00:05:37.779 Concentration risk. You take a look at Korea and Taiwan, all 00:05:37.779 --> 00:05:40.779 the massive rally has been pretty much down to three stocks. 00:05:40.810 --> 00:05:43.079 Exactly. I mean, the risk has become structural. 00:05:43.089 --> 00:05:45.369 No, absolutely. I think that this is why looking at 00:05:45.370 --> 00:05:50.769 indices has become very misleading now, because, you know, the same few 00:05:50.769 --> 00:05:53.560 companies are driving the index. So you spoke about the emerging market 00:05:53.560 --> 00:05:55.600 index. In fact, the emerging market index today 00:05:56.019 --> 00:05:58.810 is even more concentrated the than the US index. 00:05:58.810 --> 00:06:02.769 Remember, for years we have spoken about how in the US, the S&P 500 is very 00:06:02.769 --> 00:06:07.060 concentrated, dominated by these big tech companies, almost like never 00:06:07.060 --> 00:06:09.220 before. In emerging markets, something very 00:06:09.220 --> 00:06:12.490 similar has happened. So you have this massive dislocation 00:06:12.490 --> 00:06:17.410 take place that for this year, markets like China, India, these are actually 00:06:17.410 --> 00:06:22.930 down in dollar terms or, you know, like India still down ten or per cent in 00:06:22.930 --> 00:06:25.420 dollar terms. And yet these Korea, Taiwan markets, 00:06:25.779 --> 00:06:30.729 these are up anywhere between 70% for Korea, 40% for Taiwan on a one year 00:06:30.730 --> 00:06:34.120 basis, they've all doubled. So so getting massive dispersion. 00:06:34.389 --> 00:06:40.629 So as I said, the world has now become about a monomaniacal focus on which 00:06:40.629 --> 00:06:43.569 countries have which countries don't have a place. 00:06:43.629 --> 00:06:47.589 India doesn't have AI in India has been tumbling. 00:06:47.589 --> 00:06:51.009 And, you know, foreign investors, foreign funds have been making exit. 00:06:51.040 --> 00:06:55.150 What would change that? Would it take an air bubble baths for 00:06:55.149 --> 00:06:57.039 foreign investors to start pouring money into India? 00:06:57.100 --> 00:06:59.620 Yes, I think so. I think that India has been perceived 00:06:59.620 --> 00:07:04.649 that way, that it's become an anti I play because the current phase of air we 00:07:04.649 --> 00:07:09.099 are in is all about infrastructure build out who's got the compute, who's got the 00:07:09.100 --> 00:07:14.680 infrastructure to build all of that and India never invested that much on that 00:07:14.680 --> 00:07:16.780 front. I mean, India, if you look at the amount 00:07:16.779 --> 00:07:22.809 they spend on research and development as a share of the economy, it's point 6% 00:07:22.810 --> 00:07:25.720 or so. There is this Korea, Taiwan type people. 00:07:25.720 --> 00:07:32.230 They do, you know, four or 5% of the GDP in in R&D. 00:07:33.939 --> 00:07:36.699 Even China, the US is closer to 3%. Right. 00:07:36.759 --> 00:07:40.689 And those are very large economies. So I think that that's been India's 00:07:41.889 --> 00:07:45.669 so-called fault line. Now, of course at a later stage when it 00:07:45.670 --> 00:07:51.009 moves much more to adoption, then maybe India has an opportunity of using AI to 00:07:51.009 --> 00:07:54.129 try and improve its productivity and its efficiency. 00:07:54.129 --> 00:07:58.000 But currently the problem is that countries like India are seen on the 00:07:58.000 --> 00:08:01.420 wrong side of the trade for two reasons. One, as you mentioned, that they don't 00:08:01.420 --> 00:08:05.980 have this kind of, you know, semiconductors or compute which the 00:08:05.980 --> 00:08:11.050 entire world is chasing just now. And the second and this may be a bit of 00:08:11.050 --> 00:08:15.280 a myth, but at least that's the perception, is that a lot of jobs seem 00:08:15.279 --> 00:08:20.250 to be at risk because of the disruption that India has in the software sector, 00:08:20.259 --> 00:08:24.129 software, even the GCC sector. So these kind of sectors, you know, 00:08:24.129 --> 00:08:27.939 there's a job risk and there were 10 to 15 million people Indians employed in 00:08:27.939 --> 00:08:30.370 this, and some of them tend to be well-paying jobs in India. 00:08:30.639 --> 00:08:33.370 And jobs has been a structural issue in India. 00:08:33.370 --> 00:08:37.029 So on both those fronts, India is seen as a bit of a risk. 00:08:37.029 --> 00:08:40.569 Now, at some point in time, valuations will get attractive. 00:08:41.288 --> 00:08:46.569 And the fact that India, you know, that the nominal GDP is growing at 10% will 00:08:46.570 --> 00:08:51.580 offer an attractive entry point. But for now sentiment has become yeah, 00:08:51.700 --> 00:08:55.090 that we and it's true not just of India, it's true of some of the Southeast Asian 00:08:55.090 --> 00:08:57.610 countries as well. Like I was having a look at Philippines 00:08:57.610 --> 00:09:00.460 the other day, you know, like no one even talks about it. 00:09:00.759 --> 00:09:05.080 But the Philippines market today on some metrics is trading at the lowest 00:09:05.080 --> 00:09:08.800 valuation since the East Asian financial crisis. 00:09:08.830 --> 00:09:11.560 Would you buy it then? But I think that, you know, like the way 00:09:11.559 --> 00:09:15.429 I'm thinking of the portfolio today is this, if I can say so, that you think 00:09:15.429 --> 00:09:19.359 about how much air you want in your portfolio and then what are the cheap 00:09:19.360 --> 00:09:23.169 hedges that you can have in the portfolio, which is that these are 00:09:23.169 --> 00:09:25.779 cheap. They will not work just now, but let's 00:09:25.779 --> 00:09:29.980 say this reverses that for some reason interest rates go up or the bubble 00:09:29.980 --> 00:09:33.039 bursts, you know, like what are the things that could benefit? 00:09:33.220 --> 00:09:36.519 So yeah, I think that the India Philippines, you know, could be the kind 00:09:36.519 --> 00:09:39.639 of places. But in general, what I find is that the 00:09:39.639 --> 00:09:43.509 best hedge to this currently is not even gold at all, because what's happened to 00:09:43.509 --> 00:09:47.799 gold is that gold used to be a good hedge, but because it had such a peer we 00:09:47.919 --> 00:09:51.459 rally, it's no longer become a risk free asset. 00:09:51.490 --> 00:09:53.299 There's a risk that embedded in that price. 00:09:53.330 --> 00:09:56.830 So yeah, gold will do okay. But I think that the best quality stocks 00:09:56.830 --> 00:10:01.720 in the world today are the best. I do this because quality as a factor 00:10:02.110 --> 00:10:06.399 has done quite poorly, particularly in international markets, and the quality 00:10:07.120 --> 00:10:09.669 would be good. Companies with an artery of more than 00:10:09.669 --> 00:10:14.379 15% some earnings growth, but they have all done poorly because there's been 00:10:14.379 --> 00:10:18.820 such a focus on just having a I and many of the I please. 00:10:18.820 --> 00:10:21.850 I mean, we speak about the Magnificent Seven apart from that are in fact 00:10:21.850 --> 00:10:25.509 unprofitable. You talk about air place they used to 00:10:25.509 --> 00:10:30.519 say is still the place to be. And yet back in 2024, you called peak US 00:10:30.519 --> 00:10:32.799 exceptionalism. Yeah, that's not the case. 00:10:33.009 --> 00:10:35.740 We're seeing record after record after record. 00:10:35.740 --> 00:10:40.509 Yeah, and we'll continue to test record. I mean, so I'd written back in, as 00:10:40.509 --> 00:10:46.090 you're seeing like in December of 2024 that US exceptionalism is peaking. 00:10:46.450 --> 00:10:49.660 And what did I mean by that? What I meant was that America had had a 00:10:49.659 --> 00:10:53.139 50 year great run of stock market performance. 00:10:53.440 --> 00:10:57.280 But I was talking about relative the fact that the American stock market 00:10:57.519 --> 00:11:00.399 relative to the rest of the world was likely to peak. 00:11:00.759 --> 00:11:03.939 And when I look back at it, that has happened that even though the American 00:11:03.940 --> 00:11:08.170 market has continued to climb higher since December 2024, in fact, when I 00:11:08.350 --> 00:11:12.340 wrote that piece that you're talking about, I think since then international 00:11:12.340 --> 00:11:16.660 markets have outperformed the US. You know, like despite all this money 00:11:16.659 --> 00:11:20.379 flooding into America and there's massive amount of money, flooding in the 00:11:20.379 --> 00:11:22.809 dollar has, in fact in the margin weakened, 00:11:23.830 --> 00:11:25.870 it hasn't strengthened against most currencies. 00:11:25.870 --> 00:11:29.560 Now there are some currencies like the rupee and the peso, 00:11:29.559 --> 00:11:33.009 etc., which have clearly weakened against the dollar. 00:11:33.009 --> 00:11:36.460 Crumbled. Fine, you can use the word somebody, but 00:11:36.730 --> 00:11:41.590 generally currencies have done okay. So international markets have 00:11:41.830 --> 00:11:45.370 significantly outperformed the US since December 2024. 00:11:45.610 --> 00:11:48.669 And that's very interesting despite the boom happening. 00:11:49.000 --> 00:11:54.190 So now to the counterfactual that if I boom and for some reason I think America 00:11:54.190 --> 00:11:57.100 would be very vulnerable. So the other follow up piece that I'd 00:11:57.100 --> 00:12:02.740 written last year for my column was that America has become now one big bet on 00:12:02.970 --> 00:12:08.410 high that that and that's why even Trump and is able to get away with so much you 00:12:08.409 --> 00:12:11.589 know, like a lot of people here in Singapore in other places are befuddled 00:12:11.590 --> 00:12:17.019 that how does America get away with all these, you know, actions that it takes? 00:12:17.679 --> 00:12:22.870 And my point is, because America keeps bailing out Trump or other policies 00:12:23.049 --> 00:12:26.859 simply because of its preexisting strengths and because of the AI boom 00:12:26.860 --> 00:12:30.460 continuing. That's why the other actions of America 00:12:30.759 --> 00:12:34.569 are superseded by the AI boom. You talked earlier about how you're 00:12:34.570 --> 00:12:38.860 keeping a very close eye on ten year yields, which you say it's not at 5%, 00:12:38.860 --> 00:12:43.810 but when you take a look at 30 year yields at 5% and expect it possibly to 00:12:43.809 --> 00:12:47.289 go higher, isn't that sending alarm bells? 00:12:47.470 --> 00:12:50.980 Well, I wouldn't say alarm bells, but it's sending like an orange signal. 00:12:51.159 --> 00:12:53.230 It's telling you that this is what you should be looking at. 00:12:53.230 --> 00:12:57.639 As I said, 300 year history of bubbles, higher interest rates is what kills 00:12:57.639 --> 00:13:00.730 them. So if you get higher interest rates, the 00:13:00.730 --> 00:13:05.230 entire equation changes. But, you know, this is still broadly, if 00:13:05.230 --> 00:13:08.259 you look at it, it's been stuck in a range for a while now. 00:13:08.320 --> 00:13:10.750 Right. So in terms of that, but I think that 00:13:10.750 --> 00:13:15.490 the if interest rates go up, that's when it tells you, hey, this boom is coming 00:13:15.490 --> 00:13:18.190 to an end. Now you can see that it's already very 00:13:18.190 --> 00:13:20.500 advanced. I don't want to be around these, you 00:13:20.500 --> 00:13:24.009 know, like it like in this bubbly phase. But there's a lot of performance 00:13:24.009 --> 00:13:27.250 pressure that people are facing just now, because if you look at even bubbles 00:13:27.250 --> 00:13:30.429 historically, they typically you get the best returns. 00:13:30.429 --> 00:13:35.649 Typically at the end, even in 99 2000, you know that a lot of people speak 00:13:35.649 --> 00:13:40.090 about how Alan Greenspan in 1996 had said this was irrational exuberance and 00:13:40.090 --> 00:13:43.570 it took more than three years after that for that to really manifest itself. 00:13:43.570 --> 00:13:48.129 But we know from that statement the Nasdaq went up multiple times. 00:13:48.490 --> 00:13:53.590 But I think that a detail which is often overlooked here is 00:13:53.590 --> 00:13:58.840 that even in October of 1999, from then to the peak, the Nasdaq doubled. 00:13:59.379 --> 00:14:03.220 So, you know, the the the end when it happens, the last phase of this, when 00:14:03.220 --> 00:14:08.680 there's a scramble going on, the price action tends to be the most parabolic. 00:14:08.679 --> 00:14:12.099 And that's what we're seeing in some markets like in Korea and these places, 00:14:12.399 --> 00:14:16.659 you know, like now all of a sudden these chip stocks, they they going up 10% a 00:14:16.659 --> 00:14:18.639 day. I'm talking about and we're talking 00:14:18.639 --> 00:14:22.000 about really large caps chip stocks here like Samsung High Index. 00:14:22.000 --> 00:14:25.419 And still, you know, that's not normal price action. 00:14:25.419 --> 00:14:28.329 That tells you that this isn't a parabolic stage. 00:14:28.570 --> 00:14:33.879 But they said that until interest rates come in, undercut this, it's very hot. 00:14:34.000 --> 00:14:38.860 There's no science to see that it should stop right here because these things 00:14:38.860 --> 00:14:41.830 just tend to carry on with a momentum of their own. 00:14:41.830 --> 00:14:46.870 There's so much retail speculation going on, not just in the US, even in Korea. 00:14:46.870 --> 00:14:50.710 And then now you have, you know, like pro-cyclical things going on that 00:14:50.950 --> 00:14:56.200 American individual investors are now being allowed access to buy Korean 00:14:56.200 --> 00:14:58.960 equities as well. So it just. 00:14:59.019 --> 00:15:03.129 Fuse this further, We're sure. I'm just wondering again, the current 00:15:03.129 --> 00:15:07.629 geopolitical landscape, how are you pricing that into your investment 00:15:07.629 --> 00:15:09.789 theory? Because if you take a look at what's 00:15:09.789 --> 00:15:12.639 happened, you know, amid this Iran war, the U.S. 00:15:12.639 --> 00:15:16.720 has had to move all its weaponry from Asia to the Middle East. 00:15:16.720 --> 00:15:19.060 And now we're talking about a shortage of weaponry. 00:15:19.059 --> 00:15:21.639 In fact, the U.S. has told the E.U. 00:15:21.639 --> 00:15:25.509 that perhaps, you know, all the transfers of weaponry may have to be 00:15:25.509 --> 00:15:29.169 delayed. Inventories are really low. 00:15:29.629 --> 00:15:31.809 That's a huge risk for the world, isn't it? 00:15:31.960 --> 00:15:35.920 Yeah, but, you know, like markets are very bad at pricing these 00:15:35.919 --> 00:15:40.029 kind of risks. And that's because of the fact that, in 00:15:40.029 --> 00:15:44.110 all fairness, because 99% of the time these risks never materialize. 00:15:44.259 --> 00:15:49.509 There are always geopolitical risks out there in the 1% probability that they 00:15:49.509 --> 00:15:54.370 materialized, like, you know, like the First World War or something as grave as 00:15:54.370 --> 00:15:57.310 that. The markets are blindsided by that. 00:15:57.460 --> 00:16:01.990 So that's the problem that, as I said, more than 90% of the time you have 00:16:01.990 --> 00:16:04.930 geopolitical risks and they don't quite materialize. 00:16:04.929 --> 00:16:09.309 And you know, like there's a line with I always repeat that history is better 00:16:09.309 --> 00:16:13.419 remembered than it's lived, that we now look back and think that this is a very 00:16:13.419 --> 00:16:16.569 geopolitically fraught time. But at any point in time, 00:16:18.129 --> 00:16:22.090 geopolitics always seems that way because there's always some risk there, 00:16:22.090 --> 00:16:25.450 even in the best of times. Know the people. 00:16:25.450 --> 00:16:29.650 Year before, I think we were born in the 1960s speak about, you know, like the 00:16:29.649 --> 00:16:35.709 fact that there were all sorts of fears that us and Russia, the Soviet Union at 00:16:35.710 --> 00:16:37.120 that point in time would have a nuclear war. 00:16:37.120 --> 00:16:41.320 And you had all these exercises of people hiding under desks and stuff in 00:16:41.559 --> 00:16:44.019 like America. Similarly, in the best of times of the 00:16:44.019 --> 00:16:48.639 early 1990s, the peace dividend coming through, there was a real fear and 00:16:48.639 --> 00:16:52.960 Margaret Thatcher and all would speak about that, that the Soviet Union as a 00:16:52.960 --> 00:16:58.900 last gasp to stay in in power and to stay united would launch a nuclear 00:16:58.899 --> 00:17:02.610 attack you know like to try and assert its authority. 00:17:02.620 --> 00:17:06.068 So and that was remember now we look back at the 1990, there's a golden 00:17:06.068 --> 00:17:08.519 period about, you know, geopolitical stability. 00:17:08.529 --> 00:17:11.848 So my point is that geopolitics is always volatile. 00:17:11.858 --> 00:17:14.108 Yes, it seems it's a bit more volatile now. 00:17:14.410 --> 00:17:17.859 Could be the last 20 to 30 years, but the markets are very clear, which is 00:17:18.549 --> 00:17:21.068 that you do like the fear, geopolitical risk. 00:17:21.400 --> 00:17:25.210 And in the 1% chance that something really disastrous happens, they're 00:17:25.210 --> 00:17:29.319 always, you know, shocked by it. How do you think this will play out for 00:17:29.319 --> 00:17:31.689 the midterms? I mean, Cam Griffin did say that, you 00:17:31.690 --> 00:17:33.039 know what, the Democrats are going to win. 00:17:33.309 --> 00:17:36.799 Yeah, well, if you look, you know, here's the problem with the strike, 00:17:36.819 --> 00:17:40.419 which is that, yes, I think that there's an overwhelming consensus that the House 00:17:40.660 --> 00:17:43.779 will flip on that. You know, you know, like I think that 00:17:43.779 --> 00:17:47.589 everyone has sort of decided the Senate is still 5050. 00:17:47.589 --> 00:17:51.399 And here's the problem in the in the polling numbers that everyone looks at 00:17:51.400 --> 00:17:53.440 Trump's polling numbers and they are relatively low. 00:17:53.440 --> 00:17:57.880 But the two points I'll make here, one that every 00:17:57.880 --> 00:18:02.110 American presidents polling numbers for the last 50, 60 years have been 00:18:02.109 --> 00:18:05.109 declining. So comparing it to history has become 00:18:05.109 --> 00:18:08.529 fraught because in a more polarized world, all numbers are declining. 00:18:08.859 --> 00:18:13.359 And the second point I'll make here is that the if you look at the generic 00:18:13.539 --> 00:18:18.879 ballot, the Democrats and their polling numbers are, in fact, lower than 00:18:18.880 --> 00:18:21.520 Trump's. So be it. 00:18:21.519 --> 00:18:26.139 It's about who you're fighting out. So that's another reason why Trump is 00:18:26.140 --> 00:18:30.580 able to get away, because a lot of people in America are also very 00:18:30.579 --> 00:18:34.059 disillusioned with what the Democrat Party is doing.