Ep.49: Fed Hikes In Focus & The End Of The Road For Boris

Hello and welcome to episode 49 of the Market Maker podcast, and stay tuned for next week, episode 50. We do have a little special something happening. I'll explain more at the end of the episode, so you're going to have to stay tuned for now. But yeah, to mark the 50th occasion, there will be something happening, rest assured. But before I begin, as ever, I've got the co-founder, head of trading, Piers Curran, with me. We're going to go over some of the major news of the week first, a couple of highlights from across the board really, from single stock to macro to a bit of celebrity gossip I've got for you this time, Piers, as well. So gonna go through that first, then we'll talk real turkey about US inflation, we'll talk about Fed pricing, we'll talk about, um, how equities have been performing under the kind of proviso of high yields in the future. And then, of course, we've got to talk about Boris Johnson. Another headache has emerged amongst other things. And so we'll try and break that down as to, A, what's going on? B, are we going to have a new Prime Minister? And then C, do markets even care at this point? And some of the subsequent timelines on that. So start things off then. A couple of highlights from the week. Real roller coaster Really, for equity markets, I'm looking at my charts now. The Dow is back down nearly 400. The NASDAQ's selling off again. We've gone through a period of the beginning of the week, the NASDAQ had had 5 straight losses on the back of how we performed the end of the prior week. And then we had this almighty bounce and reports were the retail crowd, they love it, stepped in and bought $1 billion of stocks apparently. On Monday alone. But helping support a little bit of that kind of more midweek bump was Jerome Powell. He had kind of one of his hearings with the Senate Banking Committee. Just— this is kind of the formality of the approval of his next term as the Fed chair. And as much as he committed to the fact that really markets are right, rates are going to go up sooner rather than later, He did push back about this idea of the shrinking of the balance sheet, and that was quite critical. Tech loved it at the time. They're not loving life so much now, but very briefly had a little bit of a relief rally. Then we moved on. We had US CPI, probably major event of the week. Um, CPI came in at 7%. We'll talk about that a little bit more detail in a moment and what that means and where it might go, but it was the highest reading in 39 years. Plenty of Fed speak this week, all queuing up for rate hikes. Seems like the doves are on board as well, which would mean March they would pull the trigger when tapering, of course, is expected to, to finish at this point in time. On the other side of this, there's, there's not much panic in the oil market. Fourth weekly advance we're heading for, which would be the longest streak since October, um, kind of like what we've been talking about here is we've discussed Omicron, so forth. The analysts at Goldman Sachs saying earlier this week that demand impact from that variant has been modest. So amongst other things, oil's still tracking higher, up around $83 a barrel at the moment. And then flipping to single stocks, Ford Motor. I mean, we've talked EV a lot, Piers. We have. We haven't talked really about Ford Motor. And do you know how much Ford was up last year, percentage?

I, I actually do, because, because I read your Market Maker email. Yeah, not, not every day, most days. Uh, 130, 132%.

Yeah, you know, opening rate every day, Piers. I'm disappointed. Um, but yeah, Ford I mean, Tesla was up, I think it was 56% last year. Obviously, the S&P was up 27%. We're talking about 130+ for Ford. And it kind of went about its business pretty discreetly. But they, this week, hit a market value of $100 billion for the first time. Long story short, it's all about them going EV and a full pivot in that direction. But away from there, we had bank earnings. They commenced today, so Friday we're recording this. And JP Morgan reported record annual profits, investment banking surging. BlackRock, the world's largest asset manager, has become the first to surpass $10 trillion of assets under management.

Wow, I was going to say $9 trillion, but yeah, you just lose count. That's crazy, isn't it?

Right, so to put it in some context Uh, they've grown assets by 15% in Q4.

Q4, right, right.

That's now larger than the hedge fund, the VC, and the PE industry combined. Just their growth in quarter 4, the total. Okay, referring to— yeah, I mean, that is 9—

the $10 trillion is more than—

yeah, just insane, those numbers. Um, and then to kind of wrap off the wrap up the week, uh, aside from Boris, which we'll discuss. Uh, Novak Djokovic has obviously been in the, in the news a lot. And then you've got Prince Andrew. Yeah, um, yeah, stripped to me. That's not gonna end well, uh, I fear, for Prince Andrew, uh, at this point in time. Um, and then finally got a shout out um, to my main man Money Mayweather and also Kim Kardashian. Uh, they've been sued. I don't know if you've read about this.

I haven't.

They've been sued over promoting the altcoin Ethereum Max as part of an alleged crypto scam, right? The scam— the major two points here of the scam, the main problem is Ethereum Max has absolutely nothing to do with Ethereum, right? Part 1. Um, and it's crashed 98% since June, which is when it was promoted by these two celebrities. Now, question for you. How much— it was two questions. First one, how much does Kim Kardashian get paid per post on Instagram? US dollars.

Wow, that is a— that's what, what, how many followers has she got? A couple hundred million.

I don't know how you want to work this out though, so let's go. I know first, then you might can reverse it.

My knowledge here on Insta's low. I'm going to start at a point that I do know. Ronaldo's the highest and he's got 300 million followers. I think he broke 300 million. 300 million.

Yeah, is that right?

Anyway, so I'm going to wind that back. I reckon she's got 100 million. So post per post, that's got to be a pun. That's good. You could charge a lot for that. Um, $10 million.

She was— so, so in terms of followers, I liked where you were heading. Now, if I was interviewing Piers Curran, I'd be like, okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm liking this.

The logic is there until the last bit I said, which ruined it all.

You had the job, then you blew it. But the, uh, so her followers, you're right, uh, Ronaldo's up there, but she's very close, uh, okay, as well. So she's on 279 million, right, followers.

Yeah.

And per post she gets $860,000. A post. What, you think she's lowballing that? You think she— yeah, if you're her agent, you'd be saying, look, 10 mil if you want Kimmy to—

I think she's like— I'm, I'm gonna stick to my gun. I think she's lowballing that.

Okay, let me, let me, let me look.

My 15,000 Twitter followers, via what other channel could you access 200 80 million engaged followers. I reckon she's lowballing that.

Yeah, okay, I'll send her a message.

Yeah, I'll say you send her a DM. All right, hit her up on the DMs.

Well, let's, um, let's get straight into it and talk about I guess it's appropriate to start with the inflation numbers. That will lead us into what the Fed speakers are kind of saying, and then the policy going forward. And so US CPI 7% in 2021, largest 12-month gain since 1982. Core prices biggest advance since 1991. Um, the increase in CPI led higher by prices of shelter and used vehicles. Food contributed But energy prices, which are a key driver of inflation, of course, through the predominant part of the year, fell last month. But looking at the price movement of oil, that's not shocking at all. Um, but bond markets are pricing in now 90% probability that the Fed will deliver 4 rate hikes now in 2022, and obviously their official communication is— in their projections is 3. At this point in time. Um, thoughts on CPI first, and then we'll talk a little bit about what Powell said and what the rest of the gang at the Fed are saying.

Yeah, it's— yeah, I think whilst obviously sensational headlines, 40-year highs, you know, 7% handle, um, that's kind of what was expected though. So I, you know, it's still, um it's still more of the same, where the same is, oh wow, that's, you know, inflation's high. Um, so I don't think it changes the Fed's what is already a very aggressive hawkish pivot. Obviously it kind of, it, it adds justification to their aggressive hawkish pivot, but it's too early still for inflation to start coming down, like naturally creeping back lower due to base effects. You know, part of the reason why it's high is because of base effects, and those base effects won't come out of the equation until we get into the spring. So it's not surprising that inflation's still rising. Um, but, you know, I'm not, I'm not trying to suggest that it's not something we should be worried about, because it definitely is. But yeah, I think it's status quo where we were already in that position of inflation's high, the Fed's super hawkish, and we're still there.

So perhaps the bigger talking point of what's happened this week is not so much the inflation figures, but it is the clarity that came by way of Jerome Powell when he kind of alleviated what felt like anxiety that was resulting in this like surge in yields where we ended last week and is still kind of dominating the psyche a little bit, it feels at the moment. But he kind of— that was because markets were connecting this simultaneous trigger of policy events. Yeah, tapering finishing rates rising and also the balance sheet reduction. But he came out and said, look, that— I've got it here— he said it tends to take 2 to 4 meetings to work through the balance sheet decision. Now, just looking at the timing of the Fed meetings, that would be March, and then there's a gap, and I think it's May, is that— that would be that meeting of 3 if you take the middle midpoint of that. So Yeah, was that the key thing for you?

Yeah, definitely. I mean, I think we talked about this in the podcast last week where maybe the markets have just gone up, they've gone too far in pricing in the hawkish pivot, and maybe Jerome was listening in. Well, you know, Jerome, friend of the pod, uh, was obviously listening in.

He thought, oh yeah, I love it when we go for a Friday after work drink with Jerome Powell and Kim Kardashian. You know, it's just marriage made in heaven right there.

Um, so I reckon he was— he did— yeah, he did the right thing in his comments on, on Tuesday and just took that, that, that ridiculous idea off the table, which was in March they will hike rates and they'll start quantitative tightening at the same time. I mean, that's just insanity land. So yeah, he's pushed that out till— I mean, even I say pushing it out till June, so that's— I mean, even that's crazy. But yeah, so I think that's why you got that little bit of a bump higher perhaps on stocks. But yeah, I mean, it's a subtle difference. Look, we're still in the same— basically, we're still in the same situation. Inflation is still really high. The Fed's still super hawkish compared to what they were a couple of months ago. And that's why, you know, in the end, you know, looking at things like the NASDAQ, find a little bit of upside briefly, but, you know, we're closing out the week on the lows. This is the lowest the NASDAQ index has been since the end of October. Um, so, you know, it's starting to— it's now, it's now you can say multi-month lows, right? We haven't, we haven't been able to say that about stocks for, I mean, I don't know how long, actually. When were we last able to say stocks are making multi-month lows? You'd have to fact-check that, but it may well be more than 12 months.

Well, it might not last for long because one of the recurring calls from the suits on Wall Street is Goldman Sachs, UBS, Global Wealth Management reiterated their bullish calls They said equities can weather high interest rates and rising bond yields. BlackRock's Investment Institute recommended investors use sell-offs to add risk. And the permabulls at JP Morgan— Monday was arguably overdone, they said. And to be fair, very short-term, they were, they were right the following days. Um, whether that will be right over a longer time period, we'll see. But you Yeah, still seemingly keeping their heads fairly cool at the moment in terms of their view. And I guess this was what a lot of the banks were talking about at the end of last year. Even though we'll finish 2022 possibly higher, which is the median kind of consensus on the street, that's not without its drawdowns at some point. And I guess this is a very— well, it's very minor at this point. It's nothing to get too deeply concerned about. But is that just—

yeah, I, I want to take you back to 20— end of 2015 for a good sort of comparison, because what tends to happen is when the Fed get hawkish, markets don't like it. And until we're confident enough that actually the economy's solid and strong. And once we get our head to that point, then actually hiking rates is fine. And then it becomes not, oh my God, they're hiking. It just then becomes, well, how quickly are they going to hike? Right? And so we just move forwards in the kind of narrative one step. So at the end of 2015, the Fed went hawkish and they hiked. At the same time, we had other issues as well. There was a big concern around China at that point through the summer of 2015. And anyway, we had a wobble and markets sold off into the end of 2015 and the start of 2016. And then actually, well, I mean, back then the Fed held off a little bit on hiking more, but then as we got to the end of 2016, they started hiking and they hiked 4 times in 2017. This idea of 4 hikes in a year, everyone's going, oh my God, what? But they hiked 4 times in 2017. It's not so long ago. And the point is, how do equities react to hikes? It's entirely dependent on market sentiment, which is dependent on how solid is the economy below that. And if the economy is super strong and if we're coming out of Omicron and you're going to get some powerful economic momentum, well then hikes are fine. Stocks can go up in a rate hiking cycle. Just go and have a look. It's just we're in that transition at the moment between the Fed's hawkish pivot prior to the hike starting, and you've still got a bit of Omicron uncertainty in the mix and the supply chain and the inflation stuff. So it's all kind of in the melting pot. But I think that's why banks are pretty much happy to say, look, buy the dip. Because they think we're going to get onto the hiking cycle. And in previous cycles, as long as the economy is solid, then it's fine. And if the economy is not solid, well, then the Fed won't hike. Unless we've got an inflation problem, unless we've got stagflation. I'll just perhaps leave that on the table. That's your nightmare where economy's slow and inflation stays high. But I, I can't— if COVID goes away, I can't quite see how that works. So I don't think that's a genuine risk.

Yeah, I mean, at the moment, one thing that's happening today at the end of the week is that stocks are a little bit lower, but actually oil's firmly higher. Um, yields at the moment haven't seen too much movement. We've been pretty much sideways for the last couple of days now. Um, so yeah, it's interesting, it's, it's predominantly equities which are reflecting the anxiety to some extent at the moment. And yeah, I guess what you generally look for though is when there's a multi-asset uniformity to movement, which is then something more substantial where equities could possibly then really roll over. But the other asset classes aren't really playing that tune at the moment.

Yeah, what I will say on oil, what's really interesting on oil, certainly WTI crude at least It's the October '21 high. We're right on it, and we've kind of been flirting with it for the last week or two, but like powerful end to this week, and we're pretty much right on that big level to look out for, for, for, you know, let's say going into next week and let's say into the end of the month, because, you know, can oil kick on to $100? Is the question. And you've obviously got on the demand side Omicron going away, or at least proving to be milder. And so if, as long as economies, you know, don't lock down, then obviously demand side, that's a positive factor. And if OPEC kind of stick to their current situation, and if you've got the other stuff, one-offs like, you know, Libyan production dropping and and that kind of situation. And then you've got the medium-term to long-term lack of investment into finding more supply. In the end, that's the underlying slow burner that's driving this price up. And so I'm now in the $100 camp for '22.

Nice. Okay, yeah, well, I know you're heavily invested in oil infrastructure and oil pipeline.

What, talking my own book? What do you mean?

Um, okay, well, let's move away from, from there and let's talk a little bit about UK politics and Boris Johnson, because it's been a hell of a week, um, for BoJo, under pressure from senior Tories, of course, after he admitted the drinks party at Number 10 Garden on the 20th of May 2020, when, as you can remember, we were all in lockdown. And so, being defiant of his own government's rules, uh, the FT reported earlier in the week that MPs said letters of no confidence were starting to be handed in. And, and just a little bit of understanding of how that actually works. So Graham Brady, the chair of the Tory backbench 1922 committee. I think if you're an American trying to understand UK Parliament, even just understanding the Lords and what, what are they wearing and what are they doing, and just the, just the noises that come out of parliamentary debate. But so there's this backbench, and actually, as unimportant as that sounds, it's very important. The backbenches is kind of like where the power kind kind of truly comes from. And essentially then, the chair of the backbench committee— there's a set number that you need to have, which is a total of 54 letters. So 15% of Tory MPs would have to then put in this call of no confidence for a vote then to happen. And as many as 30 letters of no confidence have been submitted is what they were saying early in the week. So the kind of key figures— 54, around 30, which is Quite high, actually. Yeah, actually, I'd say the closer you get, the, the more that kind of value of that one vote accounts for much more. There's always going to be like very out, out there candidates who, yeah, a drop of a hat cast a no confidence. It's really the deciding ones. And as we'll talk about, it's the cabinet. The cabinet is key. If you lose your cabinet, you're out, basically. Yeah, you have no support. So the Prime Minister's approval rating It's falling dramatically. It's been going that way for some time. Uh, there was a YouGov poll that came out for the Times on Wednesday night, I think it was. Labour now have a 10-point lead over the Tories for the first time in nearly a decade. So it's been 10 years. It basically— he's— his approval rating is falling as fast, and it's almost as low as Theresa May at the end of her premiership. And one of the things that you generally start to see in politics is it's very seldom the fact that once this decline happens in confidence, it, it doesn't really change. You might be able to stabilize, stop the rot, but you can never reclaim former glory, really. And, and obviously he's gone through a sequence of different events. So yeah, feel free to jump in, but there's a couple of really really interesting points that came out of an article after Spectator, who are— I guess for a lot of particularly students, you might not follow The Spectator. And definitely one thing I'd say, if you're going into a global markets division type role, which could be quite a wide variety of positions, you really should have a base competency knowledge of certainly if you're based in London, UK political system structure, and the US, because obviously it's midterms, it ends the year. So if you're not comfortable with the differences of the two and the structure and how they operate, just spend honestly like an afternoon on each one, just reading online about it in terms of just hit Wiki and stuff like that to get an understanding of structure. It will hold you in good stead because lo and behold, I can tell you what they'll be talking about. At the beginning of November of this year. Yeah. Because it's a set political event, right? So, and that will dictate lots of different things. So just a word to the wise, just make sure you get that down. But going back to this article, they were saying a couple things. What was striking about the Tory rebellion against vaccine passports, for instance, was how many of the rebels had backed Johnson in the 2019 leadership context. Contest. He has alienated allies, and his enemies, as they are, they're already lying in wait for the best moment to strike. So you've already lost those because it's never fully favorable when you come in unless you're Tony Blair back in 1997.

Tony, Tony.

Then you've got, then you've got what is the issue. I thought this was an interesting point. Partygate— let's call it Partygate— it's not a complex issue.

Yeah.

And so even if Sue Gray, who's the person investigating this to find out has he done something wrong, is it criminal, and so forth, um, she sets out the facts and the response from the public's obviously very key for confidence. And it's an issue that everyone can understand because there are many things that Boris has done in his um, leadership, where it's so integral to the— just the complication of like Brexit and things like that. You wouldn't really understand it because it's just boring and it's just not of interest. But when it comes to like what the media are doing, which is the Queen sitting solo when she wasn't there, and you know, all these different sorts of things, it's going to resonate. And that's a massive problem because this is all about optics. Um, the ironic thing is the improving outlook for COVID, which you rightly said he kind of called it right. Ironically, that's changing the calculus for some Tory MPs because that was a risk of calling a leadership context— contest. Who would want to do it when there's such uncertainties? But actually, yeah, good point, we're getting emerging clarity coming, which is giving more greater conviction that, look, that's not so much of an issue now because hopefully boosters and the natural way of which waves get less potent over time, well then that's not so much of an issue. So yeah, it's interesting how that's changed and shifted. Um, there's now a sense that with the virus in retreat, all restrictions likely to be lifted later this month, it might be possible to do some, you know, change horses, so to speak, and who you're backing in that respect. The crucial difference between now and the first phase of the premiership— and this was another interesting point— if you think about when he came in, you needed, you needed Boris to do two things. You needed him to get Brexit done, and you needed him to beat Jeremy Corbyn. And for that purpose, he was probably a very good fit.

He smashed it on that front, on those two fronts, if that. Yeah.

But that meant they were— backers within the party were prepared to overlook, right, some of these circumstances because he was the man for the job to win on those two fronts. However, they've kind of— the narrative's shifted and the tolerance is gone now.

Yeah.

And the incidents have become multiple. Um, and then added to this argument that Johnson's departure would allow Tories— this is another important thing about the management of the party after Boris. And this is a good point. It's that if the Tories as a party now use him as the scapegoat to some degree, well, they could argue they understand the anger over hypocrisy, the sense that there's, you know, one rule for those in power that's not for the others. Like, yes, we understand Boris needs to go. And so therefore you give a clean, fresh slate within the same leading party, in that sense, which makes sense to strategy. So, um, yeah, timing-wise, um, the thing that— the reason why this might not happen immediately, and obviously very telling that Rishi— Rishi decided not to be around for Wednesday when he was getting a grilling in PMQs about all this.

Yeah.

And then he— I think he tweeted at like 8 PM in the evening, kind of half-heartedly backing him. So the talk is obviously, is Rishi gonna do it? He's the favorite, but timing is key, it always is. And there's local elections happening in May in the UK, so, um, I would say the likelihood is that nothing's going to happen probably until then. And I remember Theresa May, it was all going terribly, and then she had the European MEPs, wasn't it? And I think the Tories came like 4th or 5th.

Yeah, that's right.

Um, and when it's like a, an official formal democratic process like that, there's no, yeah, there's no gray area. Yeah, was I at a party? Was I not? Did I, you know, was it this or that? It's like, no, you are now not a vote winner, right? And so now you go. And for Rishi, if I think about May, Bank of England might have got another hike in, the the Fed have got some clarity. Omicron's now— where are we at there? Perhaps better position. Economy's moved on a bit. Just wait. This is all about let him self-implode. Don't force yourself. And then it will happen. But you know what these politicians are like. Have they got patience? I'm not sure. They're all power-hungry animals, aren't they?

I mean, I like your thesis. You're mentioning The Spectator. I won't say much on this other than The Spectator, you know, Boris was the editor of The Spectator before he became an MP. Did you know that? He's got a bit of a track record on lying as well, because you know what he said to The Spectator? The condition was you can only become editor if you don't run to become an MP. He said, yep, deal. So then he became editor, and then he went and ran to become an MP. So he's got a bit of a history. I guess he's got a history of lying is the point. And here we are again with him lying. But as you definitely— you're spot on with the fact that it's much more relatable for the electorate, this story, partying. During lockdown when everyone else isn't allowed to party, isn't allowed to go to funerals, you know, you can't go to weddings, all this kind of stuff. That's gonna piss people off. And I think you're right timing-wise, only when it's— the evidence is at the polling ballot, at the polling booths in May. If that's a car crash of a regional election, then yeah, I think that's your moment for Rishi to ride in. So Boris has got 4 months to turn it around, and I can't quite see what's on the slate for him to be able to do that. I mean, I think we've got this meeting or this announcement at the end of the month on restrictions, and I think those are going for sure. In Boris's self-interest, he'll need to get get rid of as many restrictions as possible to try and get some of those more right-wing conservatives, you know, can he save the relationship with any of those or not? But yeah, you probably say the writing's probably on the wall now for Boris.

So I guess a point of clarity for those that aren't familiar with how this really works, so when you hear a poll and the poll is suggestive of Labour like in its best position in 10 years, how are you to actually take that? Because I just want to make clear, this doesn't mean that Labour now rides in and like storms the palace. This is not how it works.

I'd go as far as to say that's irrelevant, other than maybe it persuades Rishi to go for a leadership challenge. It's irrelevant with regards to who's going to govern this country because the Conservatives have a huge majority and the next general election is not for 3 and a half years. Labour will not get into power until at the earliest, I think it's May 2025, right? Or no, I might— sorry, no.

2022, I think it is.

We'll have to check. No, hang on. When was the last general election? Boris won in— Was it end of 2019?

Yeah, it's 2019. 5 years.

It's a winter election for the first time in— yeah, so right, fine. Winter 2024, right? So, you know, we're mid-cycle, and yeah, sure, the polls are going to go up and down, Labour versus Conservative, but at this point in the political cycle, it's not relevant from who's going to run the country point of view. It's purely just down to who's going to be the head of the Conservative Party. And can Boris cling on and somehow come back from, come back from the, from the ashes? Or will— is it time? Step aside. And, and maybe, maybe a Rishi might, might come in.

I was just saying, what a ride for Rishi. I mean, until he appeared, I can't remember what it was. I think, I think Boris was so ahead at the time of— I can't remember what was happening. It was almost like it was a shoo-in. There's no point Boris turning up to some of these TV debates. So he sent Rishi out and it's like, who's this Rishi Sunak? Yeah, this is like 2 and a bit years ago. Yeah, I mean, incredible.

It's been a meteoric rise. Um, so he's young as well. I mean, he's very young. I, I don't know How old is he? And would he, would he be the youngest Prime Minister for many a year? Well, maybe since—

well, I think maybe— well, he's 41. I'm not sure how old Cameron was when he came in. I thought Cameron was a bit younger than that.

Was he younger than that? Um, I think it's close, got to be close.

Well, look, I mean, Rishi's highly relatable as ever. I mean, uh, the, you know, married into a billionaire family, so just like every one of us. So it's great to have another representative of the people of Britain. But, uh, um, I guess moving back to markets. Yeah, Rishi coming in, I mean, let's just say he does in, say, the summer. Let's just pick a timeline. Does that have any implications, um, for markets?

I don't think so. No, I mean, I don't think it particularly— because you're not getting a it's just a change in leadership, like, within the party, right? And okay, I know that means a new prime minister because they're the governing party, but from a policy point of view, certainly from an economic policy point of view, I mean, Rishi's the chancellor. So if he becomes the prime minister, then from an economic policy point of view, there's going to be no change. So therefore, from a market's point of view, I don't really see that being an influencing factor of note would be my initial—

actually, through some of the recent, uh, COVID decisions, Rishi's always kind of sat more on the looser restrictions and reopen faster side. And if Omicron does prove to be more mild, it's probably even more optimal in that sense because he's more coming from the Treasury, so economy-focused. Yeah, um, time will tell. All right, well, look, we'll wrap it up there. And just to conclude then, as I was saying, the next episode is number 50. So to fulfill on our pledge to empower you, our community, particularly students looking to kind of find their, their future in finance, whatever that might be, What we're gonna do for the 50th episode is I want people to email me directly. My email is a.chung, so a.chung@amplifytrading.com. And I want you to tell me out of the 50 episodes, you can throw in as well the additional career hack ones that we did, what was your favorite episode and why? And the one who can give the most convincing argument, should we get them on the pod? Let's get them on to promote themselves. I was going to say what we were going to do was I was going to give you the shout out. We know we have some of our corporate clients as well who listen to this podcast channel, and I was going to promote you basically and say you're the best candidate and give me the skinny and I'll give you the shout out and get you some coverage. But I think we should get them.

Let's get them on. Let's give them the stage. Let's do it.

All right, so if you want to come on the next episode, number 50, hit me on the email, a.chung@amplifytrain.com, and the three of us will, we'll get it on. Let's do it.

All right, and we'll— and what, just before we go, will Novak Djokovic be still in the draw for the Australian Open whilst we do the 50th episode in a week's time? Yes or no? I know you're a fan, so I'm interested on your angle here. Should he play or not?

Um, if he does play, he'll win the whole thing. Yeah, because purely on the basis— not because he's the best player in the world I mean, yes, he'll win because of that, but because he's the sort of guy where I would imagine you'll be angry. He gets so much hate. He, he has only, I think, achieved the type of consistent success that he's had by using that hate in a very positive way, which is to dominate his sport. And he will be— I'm going to say it as much as it pains me— he will be the greatest tennis player that has ever lived. Because he's going to win more than 21, which will take him to the top of the Grand Slams. The guy's going to win 25 plus, and then it's not even a conversation piece.

So, so far you've dodged the question.

He's going to play, he's going to win.

Do you think he should play?

No.

Good, there you go. I just needed to hear it.

Had to squeeze it out. Yeah, no, he shouldn't. No.

Okay, good.

Right, come on, Andy, let's go. Well, I don't know how he did actually. He got to the semi-finals of the Sydney tournament. First time he's won 3 in a row ATP level since 2019 or something like that. So never know, dark horse.

Doubtful. I'm not sure English sport in Australia at the moment is not going so well.

So, all right, well, on that note, have a great weekend, Piers and everyone.

Take care.

See you guys. All right, see you later.