RenMac Off-Script: AI Bifurcation

RenMac Offscript originated as a weekly internal research meeting designed to summarize and discuss what happened in Washington, the markets, and the economic data over the past week. It was always intended to be and remains a free-flowing conversation with no discernible objective other than to extract the wisdom and opinion of our analysts and their expertise. This is a conversation among colleagues.

Individual circumstances are unique and nuanced. Do not mistake these conversations for investment advice because it's not. Here we go. All right, welcome to Red Mac Off Script where we openly discuss markets, economics, policy, history, and life. It is Friday the thirteenth of February 2026. I'm Steve Duttonhoffer.

I'm Jeff DeGraff. I'm Neil Dutta. And I'm Steve Pavlik. Uh all right, Neil. So we've got an inflation report that came out today. Better than expected? Um yeah, at the margin. I mean you're seeing a little bit of a rally in in the fixed income markets. Um, you know, I think uh you know sort of splicing and dicing the data gets a little tiring, you know? I mean, well, used cars went down, but core goods X used cars went up. I mean, let's just look at

Total inflation. Over the last year, headline CPI inflation is 2.4%. So to the extent that the CPI number tends to run a little bit above PCE. Um I think this is a good number and uh you know the likelihood is is that As the year progresses, um, the Fed will be more likely to be revising down their estimates for inflation than revising them up. And um I think that's a good thing. So it kind of leaves uh sort of the good news cuts on the table. Um

And, you know, I think people should have a baseline of, you know, at least one to two cuts priced in into their outlook for this year. Um, I think we probably get more than that. Um, but I think uh as a baseline that's that's reasonable. Uh so Uh that's kind of where I'm at. Um you know there's reasons to expect further improvement, frankly, in the CPI numbers going forward. I mean one area that sticks out is is frankly food. I mean if you look at a chart of agricultural commodities.

Uh they're going down, whether you look at wheat, sugar, um That's going to ultimately bleed into what you pay at the grocery store. So that's a good that's a good thing also. Um so you know, all in all, I think it's uh good news. Um and uh I think it's encouraging.

So where do you put the balance? You know, the Fed's got this dual mandate, right? So they've got the inflation and they got the employment mandate, right? So where do you put that balance going forward for the Fed and what they have to do? We had a better than expected jobs report this week. You were uh put a report out to clients uh, I guess on Wednesday that said no unskewing the data. You were honest. You were honest about it.

uh which I think clients appreciate because you know look we let the data drive what we do here um and look it was better than than you expected right but there were some things in there that weren't as strong as I think most people took away with right Yeah, I mean yes. I uh look, I mean for me like this is all like forecast based, right? Like if I'm right, then the data will ultimately line up with my uh views. And so um

Yeah, I mean I think for us it's really it comes down to a couple of factors. I mean, number one, consumers still stress like a high level of anxiety around the job market, right? They continue to say that job finding rates are low, uh, that it's difficult t difficult to find work. Uh usually that means something. Um, when consumers tell you they're worried about the job market, there's usually a reason why they are, and historically, that's

uh shown up with, you know, higher unemployment and weaker job growth. Um You know, specifically with the job number, you know, there's a lot of noise around the data, right? Because uh particularly after the shutdown. I mean that's true of like CPI, uh the the BLS number. I don't know whether the shutdown and the sort of like

you know, we missed it we missed a number at one point. I mean, whether that has anything to do with some of this. Um but look, the survey response for the uh I mean the BLS put out a technical note talking about how the response for the CPS, which is what drives the unemployment rate, Was just very, very low. And so, you know, does that skew the number? You know, I I don't know. What I can tell you is.

People are still worried about the job market. I think that means something. And um, you know, when you look at things bottoms up, you know, who's doing the hiring right now? Honestly. I mean, um, you know, a couple of industries kinda come out. I mean Like software companies, are they going out and hiring people? Um

Uh residential construction. I mean, we're still going into the spring selling season with with mortgage rates above six percent. Um is there gonna be reason for residential construction to be building right now, with builders sitting on the most unsold inventory since twenty ten? Uh state and local governments still sluggish. Uh you know, Wendy's just came out and talked about how their same store sales are sliding and

You know, the BLS is reporting that food services employment is surging. Uh, I'm not really sure how that lines up. So I feel good about the inflation outlook. It's nice that the data today corroborated that view. Um and I, you know, I I don't think the uh the last jobs number meaningfully changed uh anything. You still have a lot of the jobs coming from education and health, and that was probably responsible for the big step up in employment growth that we saw.

Well the market seems to be, you know, bifurcating the AI versus the non AI trade. Jeff, you had a report out this this morning about the S P fifteen hundred industries. you know, both of those, you know, segments and we had a lot of green on the the non AI trade and we got a lot of red on the uh on the AI trade. Is it that simple? No, I'm sure it's not gonna be that simple. I mean, even within the sectors you can see the the bifurcation, right? So semis and com equipment still look decent and

software and IT services still, you know, pretty weak and you can do the same thing with discretionary and the same thing with industrials where there there's a bifurcation. Clearly transports have have improved, so that would be you know, more or less in the, you know, non-AI type of trade. But look, you're also seeing, you know, decent strength in um aerospace and defense and uh cap goods and the machinery names, et cetera. So

You know, there's a l there's a lot going on and I think the market is really searching for a narrative here on, you know, the back of, you know, are we gonna get cuts? Is Warsh gonna be more hawkish? How do we wanna think about that?

Certainly if you look at say energy, materials, industrials and the performance there, um it's been more typical of late cycle, even though, you know, most of our work from a macro perspective doesn't suggest it's late cycle. I'd like to hear, you know, Neil's take on that. Um, but uh, you know, it's just a a a market searching for kind of getting a sense or a feel as to what's going on. I I would say, you know, I think this is important

If we go back and look, you know, we we our work turned and it's definitive. I mean it's all quantitative what we do and and how we look at it. So it's not, you know, touchy feely, it's it's very uh matter of fact and clinical at times.

But the the point being the um the software trade, you know, was coming unwound last summer. Uh I think it was officially July, um, but it was, you know, flagging that there were problems on a relative basis. Now, during that time, and this is the importance of of what we do and why technical analysis is so important, particularly in growth industries.

Um, you know, during the time there wasn't really this narrative of AI is gonna replace these companies and replace these jobs, et cetera. Right. So the market was sniffing that out, the relative performance was sniffing that out. Part of it, of course, was because these stocks were expensive. extraordinarily expensive selling at, you know, plus ten times uh sales, et cetera. Um, but it was, you know, I think I think a real testament to why price is so important in our business because

Um, it will it will catch up, or I should say the narrative will catch up with price. It will start to reflect the narrative before the narrative becomes commonplace. And now we all know that. you know, people are concerned about will you vibe code, you know, your CRM and not needl need Salesforce, right? So

And I th I think that's an important part. And I would just say even more broadly, you know, you you speak to the AI versus non-AI trade, Steve, and I think, you know, more broadly the way that we need to think about this.

is there probably's never been a point in uh certainly in my career, but probably in history where technical analysis becomes more important than it is today because the future's so unknown, right? The the dispersion of outcomes whether that's dystopian or utopian or somewhere in the middle, the dispersion of outcomes is so huge right here that I think trying to fortune tell, you know, where things are gonna be in two years or three years or God forbid five or ten years.

uh I think is a fool's errand and you're better off. You know, certainly it's fun to kind of think about where we can be, but you're a lot better off looking at what price is telling you um and using that as your muse to then try to build the narrative around it and what that means. And I think, you know, we're seeing that today with um basically semiconductors holding up and software

uh software not. So um, you know, a as much as any time in my career, given what we're facing with AI and these changes, these, you know, monumental changes. uh I think technical analysis and just paying attention to price and you don't even have to call it technical analysis, just be mindful and respectful of what the markets are telling you. Uh I think that's such a huge part of um the future, you know, particularly twenty six, twenty seven and beyond.

Do you think uh the tech sector, you know, it's not oversold yet, right? It's not uh, you know, I would say the seller's frenzy. These are bad charts. The the the software charts are bad charts. But that said, um, you know, with the narrative as pervasive as it is. We look at ETF flows, we look at uh the option trades and where people are positioned, how people are positioned.

Um you could easily have a pretty big mean reverge and trade there. A again, within the context of very bad charts, but I wouldn't want to be a bear pressing my bets here in software. Um, you know, I think what's interesting is is

Tech overall is not oversold. Software certainly is. Um, but at the same time, you know, you only have about forty-four percent of technology names in the tech sector above their their own two hundred day moving average. So, you know, less than half of the the constituents within tech.

uh are above their own two hundred day moving average, which is a a loose definition, but it it can be used as a a definition of how many names are in uptrends. And you know, under that definition you'd be at about forty four percent.

So let's stay within the uh tech sector for a second. Steve, there was a a deal announced, I guess, in uh Taiwan. TSMC, right?

Well we had the deal I mean President Trump suggested a deal was going to be signed, so now we actually have confirmation of it now that it has been signed. Uh and to your point, T SMC is gonna be a big part of this deal. Uh they will avoid tariffs on semiconductors as long as they follow through with their domestic production uh intentions and all suggestions are that they will and that just feeds into strategically where we're going where, you know, the US wants to remain the uh

dominant uh producer of chips. Uh they want to reduce their dependency on those being produced in Taiwan and go ahead and again increase this domestic production. And you look at one of the choke points here with respect to the China US trade tens. our choke point here is access to these sophisticated chips. Now my guess is Beijing's not gonna look very fondly on this deal now that it's been confirmed. Uh so, you know, I think when you look at Trump's visit now of April sixth,

to Beijing. Um I guess is the issue of Taiwan will be uh front and center, at least from the the Chinese side. So uh yeah, I mean I think, you know, that's just uh something to to watch moving forward and we're gonna continue to hear a lot about it. And are we getting more tariff rollback? According to the Financial Times, uh they're suggesting this morning that Trump may look to

uh reduce the application uh in terms of the number of products subject to the fifty percent steel and aluminum tariffs. Uh so we'll see whether or not that does come to fruition. Uh but some listeners and viewers may recall that you know we had Kellyanne Shaw on an earlier podcast. She had worked in the first Trump White House and she suggested that polling would drive a lot of the policy proposals

Uh heading into the midterms. And this is an example that I think where you know mentioned afford affordability concerns remain top of mind. Polling suggests that uh support for Trump's tariffs just isn't aren't very popular, voters uh blaming them in some cases for some of their uh affordability concerns. So again, I think this would probably be uh an example of again the the politicians following the poll.

But when when we speak about, you know, narratives, the narrative around affordability seems to be changing a little bit, right? It used to be about, you know, the prices are too high and now it's the worry about I don't have a job to pay for what is already out there. Is that true? Well let Neil speak to to to that portion of it. But I think what you're picking up on in a lot of the polling is, you know, people look at some of their aspirational goals, you know, whether it's home ownership.

being able to pay for their children's uh tuition, being able to retire. And I think, you know, what we've seen is sort of this compounding effect of again, whether it was the the higher inflation, loss in relative wage gains over period of time post pandemic, that is still very much top of mind for folks. Uh but I guess I'm sure Neil has some opinions here as well. Never. Um

Yeah, I mean I think it's like anything in DC. By the time they start talking about it, it's already over, you know? I mean, when have they actually ever been in front of anything? Um, so you know, this that's that that works for the affordability story as well. I mean For the longest time, affordability was all about the prices people pay. And I think going forward it's really gonna be about um whether you have a job. Right. Things are unaffordable when you're unemployed.

Um, shockingly. Um and that's like anything else. I mean, you know, you want to bring prices down. Um significantly, um so the cost of doing that actually might be greater than the one that people are willing to bear, um, because it would probably mean more widespread unemployment than most would tolerate. Um It's all fun and games until employment starts to crack, and once it does

that's the only thing that usually matters. So, um, I mean, look, I mean, I think the labor markets are definitely a uh a disinflationary force at this point. I mean, if you look at things like vacancies to unemployment, Um, you know, there's more openings than there are. Uh sorry, there are more unemployed people than there are openings. Uh that that's gonna mean wage growth is likely to cool down. You see that uh also in like advertised uh job

jobs, right? So if the wage growth in advertised job openings is sliding, it stands to reason that the uh wage growth for those that are working will also slide. Um and uh you know if wages are slowing, um then that's what people are gonna be more concerned about. Um, you think about you think about these people in like the tech industry with so much of their uh compensation tied up in uh in stock, you think they're worried about the affordability from a price perspective?

Or are they worried about the fact that their compensation is about to get clipped, uh, because so much of their compensation is tied up in the in the equities of the firms that they're working for. So, um, you know. Don't look to DC to tell you what's about to happen. By the time they start that's why the the the Wall Street adage has always been markets stop panic uh financial markets stop panicking when uh DC begins to panic.

Well they're uh they're off this week, right? We is it is it shutdown related'cause I don't wanna worry about getting home? TSA? It it it's the the the President's Day recess, but to your point, we're recording this Friday morning. Lawmakers have already left town. Government funding for the Department of Homeland Security is said to expire at twelve oh one uh tomorrow, uh on Valentine's Day. So no love for DHS employees.

But if you're concerned about flying in the near term, uh remember that the TSA employees were recently paid. So their next paycheck will be a month from now. So if you're trying to figure out game the system as to when the shutdown might end, if TSA workers start showing up Uh it may be around the time they're expecting that next paycheck. If they really wanted to motivate lawmakers, what I would do is do the strike before they try to come back.

which would be the following week, the twenty third. Uh but again we'll see whether or not that that comes to fruition.

Aaron Powell It's amazing that the TSA uh employees have now become the pawn in this whole thing, right? I mean they were the pawn the last time. Aaron Powell It's unfortunate. It's disappointing, not surprising, which is a familiar phrase here in D C. Uh but I think the important thing for folks to remember is that Department of Homeland Security accounts for about four percent of the

So 906% of the government is now funded through the end of the fiscal year, September 30th. So I don't think we're going to experience any of the major disruption that we saw in the fall. Hey, it's Steve. If you're enjoying this pod, not already a client, keep in mind this is just a fraction of what we do here at Redmac. Clients get our full research platform access across macro, technicals, policy, and sector strategy. Plus,

the screens, alerts, and all the money-making research behind the wall. If you want to learn more, it's quick and easy. Just head to renmac.com and request a trial. Whether you work at a financial institution or you're just an individual looking for an edge, we have what you need. Come be part of the Red Mac team. Thanks for listening. Now back to the show. Um, all quiet on the uh the Warsh front.

I would l leave that to to Neil in terms of what's going on with Connor. I know Neil's unbelievable. It's never it's never quiet. I just want to know if if he has to go get confirmed if it's gonna be anything like Pam Bondi because that those hearings were not Can I say something? Anyone who hasn't done it. Please watch all of these hearings.

on the Twitter account or the X account, Diaper Diplomacy. Look up diaper. It's basically it's it's the only way to watch these hearings. It's like basically have you seen watch them on C SPAN. Don't do that. Have you seen it? Um I have not. I mean, I don't know. Maybe Harry can later like uh uh just cut to what I'm talking about, but it's just like W what it basically is is it's their voice. You hear them talking.

And um it's a baby version of these uh baby yeah. Yeah. So it's like a caricature of the three. Exactly. And so they had Pam Bandi and uh That the uh Jaya Paul, the um the Congresswoman from from Washington just going at it. Attorney General. So um Mr. Chairman this. I am reclaiming my time when I will be able to do that. The time belongs to the gentlelady. The gentlelady has seventeen seconds. Thank you. You're not gonna answer this question, so let me just

No, I'm answering a question. Stop that. The best one, frankly, was uh Bessant versus Maxine Water. It was so good. It's like Will you be the voice of reason? And and then Treasury Secretary Bress is trying to get a word out, and she's just like, no, no, yes or no, reclaiming my time. So I asked you, Secretary of Business. Will you be the voice of reason in the administration and urge Trump to stop waging a war? on American consumers and on housing or for affordability.

and putting the economy at risk. Yes or no? You don't have to explain. Will you be the voice? Will you be the voice S. Will you be the voice? Will you be the boss of reason? Reclaiming my time. Reclaiming my time. immigration. Tom does belong to a woman from California. I mean honestly, it's just a Yeah, I it's just that comes to the same thing. So we shouldn't expect that for the worst nomination is my my question. He was c he was confirmed for his seat, right?

Like a hundred to zero, wasn't he? Steve. Uh, level of confrontation. Uh the thing to watch I think is before we get to the confirmation, will the Trump administration uh agreed not to follow through on an indictment of Fetcher Jerome Powell. That's what you need to really unlock that confirmation vote because Senator Till's Republican from North Carolina who's retiring can support that he's retiring'cause he's not going to be held uh politically accountable for this. Uh, you know, still isn't

publicly willing to to drop his opposition, which means Warsh can't get through the committee. You're not gonna have a confirmation hearing unless you're confident that the nominee is going to make it through. Uh so I suspect that's the thing to to watch. And look they have some time. I mean Fed Chair Jerome Powell's term as chair doesn't expire'til May fifteenth. Uh so you know, I think probably not anticipating hearing at least for another month.

Uh, one more question before we get to the mailbag. Uh overseas we had a Japanese election what last week, right? Jeff, you see any in the markets in either Japan or, you know, markets around the world, global markets that sort of pique your interest? On the export markets, um uh export industries uh did well. The um

Uh the yen did not weaken significantly. You didn't have any, you know, kind of blowout. So it was gonna be a tail event if that was gonna happen and it didn't happen. But um certainly the trajectory is, you know, still in place for a weaker yen, so that'll be important. That one fifty five, one sixty level on

on uh dollar yen is is critical because that's historically the point at which they've started to intervene before. You know, we're kinda right in that zone. Uh I would suspect anything above maybe they're gonna let that drift higher, but anything above one sixty starts to uh capture the attention of um uh treasuries and uh uh interest rates and everybody else that's uh in uh interested in uh the forex and the funding market. So

I think that'll be important as we go, but no no real dislocation. I would say just, you know, one thing on the market,'cause I I do think it's important, the The investors intelligence figures were out this last week. Uh the consensus inc. figures, these are both survey measures. Um the investors intelligence goes back to like nineteen sixty-four, so it's been around a long, long time.

Um and it's actually pretty good if you look at it historically. Um there is a skew to this. In other words, um, you know, statistically these are these are important numbers and they work, but most of the

uh of the relationship or the significance of that relationship comes from uh the excessive bears, not when there's excessive bulls, so it's a much better bottom timing indicator than a top timing indicator. That said, um the II bull bear ratio and the consensus inc data are both in that elevated zone where there's a lot of complacency.

And, you know, oftentimes it's a reflection of returns. So we'll actually use that and uh and break it down because, you know, we we know just through through history Um if we know what returns look like over the last three or six months, we can get a pretty good idea as to where sentiment should be.

Um what gets interesting is when returns don't match, but sentiment's elevated, and that's where we are today. In other words, there's a lot of enthusiasm, even though those returns haven't really been driving um br driving that enthusiasm. So

uh we've got this elevated sort of bullishness, but we don't have a lot of momentum. And that's a certain vulnerability. Again, not crash risk or anything that's that's outsized, but um really consistent with our message from the beginning of the year, which is look, when you don't have momentum, you have to be prepared for these five, maybe even ten percent corrections, because that's just kind of the way the world works.

Um so you don't have to be a a a price taker. In other words, you don't have to pay up for things. You can be a price seeker. You can wait and be a little bit more patient. Um and I think that that it's that combination of um elevated sentiment along with the soft momentum that um you know makes some sense to have some defensive positions and and some cash on hand. Right. So tiptoe around the uh the market.

Uh let's go to the uh the mailbag. Harry, good morning. Um got a lot of questions this week uh to remind everybody a hat will be uh on its way to you, a RenMac Trucker hat. from the folks at uh Red Mac for your submission and inclusion into our podcast. So uh thanks for submitting those. Uh Harry, take it away. Good morning. We have the question come from Michael Cochran this morning.

His question is do tight credit spreads still reflect true risk in the credit market or are they being skewed by higher credit quality below investment grade public debt? and non transparent private credit markets that may be masking early signs of sprays widening.

That's it. Thank you. Great. Thank you, Mike. And we'll get that hat to you. Jeff, uh credit uh and credit spreads are always the canary in the coal mine, or usually the canary in the coal mine, right? So I'll let you take this for uh your thoughts.

Yeah, look at at at worst they're coincidental. Um two thousand and seven they led. Um in other uh other markets they've led. Usually I think what Michael's talking about is maybe a little bit more broadly, you know, looking at things which we do look at, uh triple B versus Treasury yields. Um so that would be the lowest tier of investment grade versus obviously what's happening in the in the in the in the government debt market. So those are kind of

little bit apples and oranges there, you know, maybe a Empire Apple versus a Granny Smith or something, right? So they're not quite the same the exact same thing. Um th those spreads are still in good shape. We will also look at other things like the double B versus triple B spreads. So that

lowest non-investment grade to highest uh I'm sorry, lowest investment grade to highest non-investment grade, just to see what that line of demarcation is between um, you know, basically what banks can buy and what what can't be bought. So speculative versus non speculative debt.

Uh and then we'll break it down by sector, we'll break it down by industry group and and really look uh look under the hood for all these. And look, th there are some there are some hotspots right now. I think there are, you know, if you look at tech C D S spreads as an example, there are some hot spots there.

I would say to Mike's point, which is you know, has there been a dynamic shift in the way that credit I don't think is priced, but maybe credit is underwritten today versus where it's been historically and Traditionally that was housed in the big banks, right? And then after Dodd Frank, that kind of all went to the private sector and we had private credit and private equity and everything else.

And so, you know, within that and this is something that we've talked about now for you know probably a good six months is Um, you have seen this deterioration in the equity portion. uh of the private equity firms, so the KKRs, the Blue Owls, the Aries, etcetera. Um, those are not good charts. Um they've been vulnerable, they continue to be vulnerable and

You'd frankly expect that if you did have some, you know, uncomfortable uh things happening in uh in the credit markets downstream, right? Because obviously the equity portion is the the the cushion. Um so I I do think that there is probably a little bit more uh concern or or turbulence in the credit markets that

um that is taking place that we're seeing more through the equities of the private credits than we are seeing uh in say the public credits or the uh the credits that are uh traded in the indices. So You know, keep that in mind. I think it's important. One other thing, and I know we've talked about that in this pod before, be very careful of using the the credit ETFs as a proxy for what's happening in the credit markets.

They're highly more highly correlated to equities than they are to the underlying cash positions of those credits. Um and the liquidity is actually an accident waiting to happen. You can get off, you know, tens of millions, probably hundreds of millions of dollars in uh in credit, uh using an ETF that has nothing to do with the underlying cash position. There's no way you could call a bank and do the same type of transaction, have the same type of liquidity.

um that you can get with the ETF that you do on the cash uh in the cash business. So there's this this bifurcation there that's um that's pretty dangerous, frankly. So Just, you know, don't use these ETFs as your proxy for credit because they're far more linked to the equity market. So that's just our PSA here for uh J uh February thirteenth, two thousand twenty six. Very nice educational uh promotion there. Thanks, Jeff.

Uh Michael, thank you for that question. Like I said, we'll get that uh trucker hat out to you. Let's look out uh for the week. Steve, not a lot going on in DC as we talked about, but anything else you're watching? Not a lot going on in Congress. I we'll watch Friday when the Supreme Court returns from its winter break, because when they're in session that's usually when they issue rulings and there are probably three that I'm keeping an eye on.

One is obviously uh this ruling over uh President Trump's ability to impose tariffs using AIPA. Also watching uh ruling whether or not Trump can dismiss Fed Governor Lisa Cook. For cause, what that means for Fed independence, and also uh ruling with respect to a case down in Louisiana that could have a lot of redistricting implications.

Uh so you know I'm not guaranteeing we're gonna get all those. There's been a lot of buildup every time the court's there, and it's sort of like the boy who prized wolf with respect to this terra fooling. Uh but my guess is that's what people will be fixating on when the court does return. And Neil, other than watching uh diaper dandies or whatever you're doing on uh social media. Diaper diplomacy. Harry, make sure you get that that video up there just so we can break to it. Um

Yeah, I mean there's a lot of data coming out next week. Uh housing will be in focus. Um, so we get uh housing starts. Um So we're sort of still playing catch up from the government shutdown. So the census is releasing the data for November and December. Um You know, we're gonna get industrial production as well. Um, so you know, for the first time in a long time, uh manufacturing employment actually rose. Um so that

Should be good news for factory production. Um and we're gonna get this sort of early read on um you know what's going on in February with some of these regional uh manufacturing uh data points. So like the Philly Fed, New York Fed, that'll also be released. Uh next week Home builders are starting to look better, right, Jeff? Yeah, they broke out. So they turned in our work uh I think like three months ago. Um

The uh toll was kind of the leader. Uh I think Lenar was kind of the laggard. Uh again, you know, my more bifurcation within even an industry group. But um yeah, they're they're acting better and some of these building products are acting better as well too. As you say, it's a stock pickers uh market for sure. It definitely is, yep. What are you watching this week?

Well look, I think, you know, we're watching for um for a bounce in some of these um these oversold conditions and this contraction in the tech momentum, right? So the winners outpacing the losers by a very wide margin, usually unsustainable. So I think that's a a potential tinder box that we have to be very careful with.

Um, I'd also just note that a lot of these precious metals had, you know, good rallies off the lows. They they cracked initially. Um, they had about a 50% retracement, which is right in line with what you'd expect. Um and now they're acting heavy again. So I think there's more fallout to these as well. Um Bitcoin has been, you know, frankly an unmitigated disaster. Um we're not done with that yet. I think you're gonna have more downside there.

Um so it's, you know, some of these these fissures that we're watching that I think there's some juice left to squeeze and um we're certainly here with the press looking to squeeze it. And you didn't even mention Michigan State beating up on uh Michigan. Thank you. Appreciate that. I you know, there's I have I have some empathy. I'm a Not a cold hearted Wolverine like most of the graduates, the insufferable graduates that I know from the great state of Michigan. Throw that in there at the end.

Uh all right. Let's let end it there before it gets out of control. Uh we'll be back uh next week for the twentieth of uh February uh talking about some more important stuff. Um until then, I'm Steve Duttonhoffer. I'm Jeff DeGraff. I'm Neil Dutta. And I'm Steve Pavlett. Thanks, everybody. See you next week.