Death of Austerity

course there's the market angle. We had the quickest fall into a bear market on record, and that was then followed by a historic comeback. But according to our guests, we're now in the midst of an expansion just like any other, just likely a shorter one. He'll explain, And of course we will close out the episode with our tradition the craziest thing I saw in markets this week, and by all means, if you saw something crazy, give us a call on the Bloomberg Podcast Hotline at six

four six three to four nine. Oh and let us know what crazy thing you saw. Leave us a voicemail and maybe we'll play it on the show. Uh And Sarah, I trust you have a crazy thing. You had two weeks a week off there to prepare, so I expect you to bring it this week. Yeah. So I brought you two crazy things this week. I might even throw in a third if you're lucky. But for everyone listening, I know you demanded it, and we did get the

demand on our ratings on Apple Podcasts. So luckily you don't just have to stick around today for the crazy things. You also get to stick around for one of Mike's nicknames. How exciting that is. Remember this into it. This is not the high value nickname. I'm holding out for two hundred ratings to give the high value nickname. This. We're getting there. This is a bargain nickname. It's a flattering

nickname to me. So I keep those ratings coming. I think we're at one seventy something now, so we get the two. I'll deliver the really embarrassing nickname for this right at this right, Mike, give it a week, give it a week, just so you can all roast me on Twitter. I know that is the entire purpose of this, which is fine. That's that's as it should be. But new guest, and we won't roast him on Twitter anywhere else. We're very happy to have him first time on the show.

He is the chief strategist at the clock Tower Group. His name is Marco Peppitch. Marco, welcome to the show. It's a real pleasure to be here. Thank you for having me. Oh absolutely, Marco. Let's start. Let's talk a little bit about the clock Tower Group. Um, and it tell us a little bit about you know, what kind of work you do for them. I know the main business is sort of seating new hedge funds, right, um, So, so tell us about what else the company does and

what your role is. We're in an alternative investment management firm, so we we do several things. We we set hedge funds, macro discretionary hedge funds. We also UM have a seating platform actually in China with on shore managers there. We also are doing private investing, specifically in fittex space, but we're also looking to expand from there as well. So

there's several sort of business lines that we have. We have great relationships we've built over the last twenty years with institutional investors and we really listen to our clients. We hear what they are looking to do and um, we you know, we claim to be able to answer most of their challenges and deliver with some innovative business ideas and investment products. So just to expand on that a little bit, how do you go about deciding where

to send money to if you're seating hedge funds? I mean, how do you go about doing that process? You know? Um, it requires a real in depth knowledge of the industry and I think also of m where the young talent is. I mean that's the fundamental, uh, fundamental issue. I mean, um, you have to know how to kind of have a

draft board. Think about like a professional sports team. You throughout the season, you're looking at the college studs coming through the program and you're looking at where they are and how they rank. Um, So that's one part of the process. It's very difficult because of course the industry I mean not like you have statistics of hedge fund

portfolio managers somewhere publicly available. But you also have to know where the sport is going, you know, so you have to know kind of whether three point shooters are more likely to succeed or you need big, big guys rebounding. So there's also that component where we have to constantly be thinking where is macro going? And so I guess my role is not really on the former. You know,

I'm not really like a talent scout. I enjoy talking to really smart people and hopefully I can add value there, but my expertise really is on the ladder, so kind of thinking where the macro industry is going, where the trends? Do you want to see someone who is an expert in emerging markets stress that more classical macro. You know, those are questions we also have to ask ourselves. I can't quite say that you have a five star rating or four star rating a quarterback or anything like that.

We don't you know, you don't have that. But you've got to keep your ear to the ground and kind of figure out who's who's out there, Who's who, who's good? So you're on Wall Street pets looking for writers. I assume that I'm I'm just kidding of No, no no, no, actually I think my eight year old son, you know, could could be good next, next one up. He played a lot of computer games. Yeah, absolutely absolutely, But let's

get to that point. Then, your role, as Sarah mentioned, um, you have an interesting take on on what we can expect from this economic cycle. Uh, it's gonna be like a normal cycle, just shorter. Uh. And you wrote in a recent note, you know this augurs for a more volatile, manic and brief bowl market. Talk us through that a little bit. How do you see that unfolding and kind of you know, what inning are we in now in

your view of this expansion and bowl market? You know, let me first give you sort of a sense of where I'm coming from in terms of my competency. Um, I feel that my kind of methodological bias is probably political analysis. So that's where I cut my teeth at on south side research. And so when I look at what happened in the last expansion and I sort of try to figure out, why was it as prolonged, tepid,

Why was it all about secular stignation. I call it the Charlie Brown expansion because it was always kind of depressed. Um So why A lot of people give you a lot of really complicated answers like, oh, people are getting old demographics, you know, technologies deflation. Yes, okay, maybe to me it was very simple. Politics flipped and we got this huge push towards austerity. Not just in the US with the Tea Party, but even with David Cameron in

the in Europe mircle of course everywhere. Only really could you say that abanomics kind of moved a little bit against that. But there was this big political consensus that we had to tighten our belts because what households did, so the governments had to do the same. And I think that was a huge component of prolonging the recovery, making it, you know, tepid, make ensuring that the output gap could continue to be basically open and not closed.

I think that this time around, it's very clear that we're in a different paradigm, and so I think that we're probably done. I would say with you know, I don't know. I'm just throwing this out there, but like this recovery I think is behind us. We ask me again in twelve months, maybe I'll reassess. I think we have two stimulus programs coming through using reconciliation, which is novel, and we can talk about why that's novel. I think they're gonna be huge. I think there's gonna be no

revenue offsets. This this fantasy that they'll be corporate tax increases likely will not happen, So we're just gonna have unadultered, high powered spending. That makes this, I think, meaningfully different from the previous expansion. And I will say, of course, Marco, you have a book. It's called Geopolitical Alpha, and it was ranked one of the best books by Bloomberg of

so if you're intrigued, definitely check it out. So what that said, I mean, with the flip that we have seen, of course there's a lot of spending coming down the pipeline. If this is yes, it's a faster expansion in, but then it also means it's a shorter expansion. What is it then that is the nail in the coffin? What is it that actually ends the expansion? If it's faster yet also shorter, you have to assume the end comes sooner as well. Yes, and I think eventually we do

run out of fiscal policy um at some point. And I think that sort of my my mental framework for this would be the short and quick recessions that happen after the Korean War or World War two, where you had a fiscal cliff recession. I mean right now, you know, speaking on February eighteen twenty one, I would say three looks like potentially the end end line. I think in two will get another two trillion dollar stimulus package infrastructure deal, um.

And I think by three, after the mid terms, it's it's unlikely they will be able to keep up with this high water mark we've now established in terms of fiscal spending. But you know, that's a very low conviction of you. All I know is that for the next two, you know, two years, it's like diamond hands and to the moon. You know, I got anything else to tell you other than that, And let me tell you one more thing. Let me tell you one more thing, just

really quickly, I think, uh, think about it this way. Okay, let's let's let's say we're listening to your podcast, amazing podcast, whichever one should listen to. Let's say they were listening to your podcast in a car and we pull up to the takeout window. All right, but I'd like to listen to your podcasts at three X. Okay. I don't know if anyone does that, but let's say I do. And so what I'm saying about the cycles, it's like

listening to you guys. And then suddenly at the takeoff window, I realized they forgot my fries, they didn't put the milk I want in my coffee, and I'm arguing with you know, like whatever I get that done and coffee together, you know, like you got a tough day, you need energy and I guess whatever carbohydrates. Anyways, my point is that what happens is that when you come back to

the podcast, you've missed meaningfully more of that pod. Kist him you did if you listen to it at one X. And I think that's the difference between the cycle and the previous one. If you're sitting on the sideline being cautious because evaluations this or that, waiting for a correction, three months on the sidelines, it's like nine months in the previous cycle. I do have a friend who listens to it. I think it like one and a half times speed. And then every time he sees me starry,

he's like, you know, and I talked him. He's like, you really talk, you know, the same energy that you usually do when I hear you on your podcast, Marco. I wonder, you know, another thing you've written a little bit about is inflation, the outlook for inflation. I wonder how that fits into the sort of inevitable death of of the the expansion cycle. You know this sort of uh stereotype that's probably true of true of most times is that you know, the central banks typically snuff out

expansionary time reacting to inflation uh and and raising interest rates. Um. And I think you make a good point. You say that there's obviously gonna be this second quarter bumping inflation as the world kind of gets back to normal. And you know, you have some you know, comparisons to prices last year that that we're obviously uh deflated because of the pandemic. So you think sexual banks will dismiss that sort of outlier of a big hot second quarter inflation. Um,

But you do think it's it's coming. Uh. You point out to, uh, maybe oil going to eight dollars a barrel? So is it is that going to be a typical sort of boom and bust scenario as past cycles that ultimately it's the central banks that sort of ruined the party. And you know, how fast do we have to worry about inflation and the reaction function from central banks if not the second quarter? Yeah, So definitely that could be

part of the calculus. And think three again could be a moment when central banks realized that they kind of made a mistake mathematically center a sparables like completely understand why they're saying it's transitory, But inflation is not a monitory phenomenon. It's not even a mathematical phenomenon. It's as many in many ways a psychological phenomenon. And I'm just not sure how economic agents, you know, households and CEOs are going to react to this coming quote unquote transitory

about of inflation. I think they will react. And this is just my, you know, basically educated guess, but I think they'll react vibe uh forwarding their purchases to the present from the future. Um. So that's that's the first part of this. Now to your question of does Dad's then bring the end of the cycle, I think yes. I think you can add that to sort of the soup with the fiscal thrust argument, but I am not sure how fast it will happen. And and here's here's

what I would kind of add a political lends to this. Um, they told us what they want to do, central bankers of tolls, they wan't hire inflation. It is the easiest way, and I know most investors don't like to hear this because their savers. But it's the easiest way to kind of redistribute wealth and to deal with because because a lot of people are indebted at very high levels. Of course, provided their wages rise as well, which I think they will.

So I think that this is something that's coming by Paulson, because I think they'll delay the kind of acts of central banking that comes and cuts inflation in its tracks. I know that we know how to do it. I know that Paul Walker did. But Paul Wulker was a man of the moment and he managed to fight and you know, swat away inflation through two recessions that increased unemployment.

I just don't see any willingness to impost pain on the media voter at this point, and so I think that we will look through inflation longer than most investors probably think. So. So speaking of inflation and looking at commodities, and Mike mentioned how you said oil could go to eighty dollars a barrel. Of course, as speaker, was a remarkable week in the United States. In Texas, we had the freeze, we saw oil prices shoot through sixty dollars

a barrel. West Texas intermediate for the first time in a year. So is this just the beginning? And obviously that that's on the supply side of the equation, But what comes next to really push oil higher? Is is it the recoveries, the vaccine roll up, things getting back to normal, and then what does that mean for the inflation picture overall? You know, Sarah, I mean it's all of those, all of the above, you know. So, Um, I also think jue political tensions you can add in

there too. Um. You know, the sort of the hope of a quick supply shock, positive supply shock because of a Biden administration is dissipating. Um iran elections midyear, it's unlikely we get a deal. I mean, it's a very complicated situation. But I think fundamentally, um, one of the most ironic and paradoxical uh kind of effects of the E s G sustainability push is that many energy companies just do not want to put topics in two very

expensive projects. And so I you know, like you have demand which is basically stable around nine million barrels a day globally, and if Capex doesn't produce four to six million new barrels a year, of product of production to replace depleted oil wells. You can't make meet that demand. So we could have a meaningful problem when demand does recover to global kind of average demand and CAPEX doesn't show up to replace the usual depleted barrels that just

happened through well depletion. So that's the first issue. I think the second issue and what it means for inflation, it's tricky. So I would actually say all price increases over the longer term are deflation ary if not accompanied by commensurable increases in wages. And this is really tough for economists and market participants to forecasts, like how do you forecast wage increases? You know, the Phillips Group hasn't

really hopped in any way. There's also some ways in which we don't really know where kind of wage pressures are going to come from. But I think there are two things that are happening right now. One, many labor unions are seeing in this crisis an opportunity to renegotiate and to um you have a real problem in many major cities in the US as an example, where you know, schools are not going to open for a long time, and so if women can't and they've been uh, disproportionately

hurt by dis crisis. If they can't get back into the labor force, they're an incredibly important input into the service economy of the US, and that will boost wages as well, I think in parts of the economy that haven't really seen much wage pressures. Putting all this together, I think trying to figure out if wage pressures show up over the next twell months is a critical component into figuring out whether any inflationary impact of commodities is sustainable.

And I would lean towards yeah, there will be wage pressures, you know, Marcus, sticking in your wheelhouse stare of geopolitics. Um, there was one line in the notes we got from you that that I'm gonna be honest, that kind of scared my my shoes off here. So so of course you know I have to read that, Sarah, this this the scary stuff you gotta bring up. But let me

let me just read this itself. Fear cells. Yeah. Um, so you write that the odds of a military confrontation with the US are rising as China achieves greater energy independence and gains a critical footprint in the global renewable supply chain. Um, I'm just glad I'm above the draft age when I read something like that. But but unpack us that for us a little bit. UM, I guess the argument is that um, China is becoming so competitive

globally in technology, green energy. Recently, we we even saw headlines about China does not want to export rarer earth materials to the US because they can be used in military projects. That sort of thing unpack that for US is that basically it that that the trade, aid and economic competition is getting so fierce between China and the US that this UH necessarily raises the odds of an actual UH military conflict. Let me step back. I I actually, um, you know, I've had a view on this for a

very long time. So I started my career in finance by basically trying to make politics and geopolitics investment relevant to my clients. And one of the frustrating things in thirteen is that nobody was paying attention to Asia, really nobody, and especially in Singapore in Hong Kong, they would like throw you out of the office if you said, well, I think China U s dnsion is good on no, no, no,

it's all about you know, isis. It's all yeah, tell me about and so that was very frustrating for me, and I was trying to explain why there is this, you know, very very theoretical, very political science based problem between US and China that's been identified before Garhame Ellison wrote that great book, The CD of This Trap, and so on and so on. However, I think there's two

things that are going on right now. Two man people are linearly extrapolating the last ten years into the future, and so they're extrapolating using the only mental framework they have, which is the Cold War. So ironically, Mike, I'm actually going to kind of disagree with you and agree with you at the same time. I would say that the trade tensions, the economic tensions, are likely going to surprise

to the downside, you know. And and why well, because we don't live in a bipolar world where so union in the US can carve up the planet in two neat spheres and then tell their allies plain ice or will punish you. We live in more of a nineteenth century kind of a world, which is exciting. It's a swashbuckling there's just a lot of messiness and geopolitical volatility, and it's gonna be very difficult for US to keep its allies and chat in China to do the same.

And in that world, it's going to be very difficult to actually have a clean break. Now. I fully expected Biden administration to be very tough on emergency knowledge is high tech and so on, for sure, but I think the tariffs and blanket, uh, the coupling is unlikely to happen. And we saw that last year, by the way, the height of the trade war, you know, we had massive inflows into China into the bond market that was one of the number like number one favorite trades for many

investment institutional investors and so on. So that's the first part of this. You can have geopolitical rivalry and still trade with one another and still invest in one another. And actually history and political science tells us that this is what happens in the multipolar world. However, military conflict

still remains a problem right as a risk. I mean, look at Germany and the UK before n Their trade increased right up until the day of World War One, and so those tensions are still there, and those are meaningful tensions of a rising power trying to carve out its sphere of influence and the status quot power trying to kind of limit its influence, and and that's just

the that's just the world we live in today. So what I was saying in that particular analysis was that some of the emerging technologies is sustainability and alternative energy, which of course we all kind of welcome because they

will resolve climate change. Ironically and paradoxically, there is an outcome here where they also allow countries like China but also US to become more energy independent, and that reduces constraints to conflict because if China US don't have to worry about international trade flows or access to commodities to fuel their economies, if they become more out of autarchic which is mouthful out tartic, they gain sovereignty and independence and can then decide to pursue, you know, foreign policy

moves that could lead to conflict. You know, it's it's a fascinating point. What I also find so interesting is how the focus of not just markets, but people who watch and pay attention to markets has changed. I mean, the past couple of years, it was all trade war, trade war, trade US US China relations then switched a bit to the election, and now these days it's all diamond hands into the moons, you said earlier. So so we'll see if if the narrative and the focus does

shift back under the new administration. But you know, Sarah, one of the reasons that happens is also because, uh, something that's front and center becomes background noise. It becomes priced in, so in you know, you walk into an office and you say, hey, China US serious problem. People are looking at you like, maybe I don't know what's Trump gonna do. He's a dealmaker. Don't worry about it. I mean, that's that was the consensus, right. Have you

read the Art of War like or whatever? The Deal is another book, but that one was not written by President Trump. I'm pretty sure you know, like, yeah, the Art of the Deal. You know, you've got to read the Art of the Deal to figure it out. It's there's not going to be a trade war. Like Okay,

thanks Dives. You know, that's great. Happened, um, But but what I'm getting at here is that I think what's happened, Sarah, is that a lot of this stuff has become price then in its background, and investors can kind of look through it, which is I think in some ways appropriate. But then there's uh, there are issues that I think would alarm me and would say, you know, for example, anything that has to do with Taiwan, I think would

be a serious confrontation. So Marco, to sort of boil it all down to how how you would have your clients are listeners sort of position themselves. Uh, it sounds like for now, at least for the foreseeable future, it's kind of the classic reflation trade that everyone's talking about, you know, uh, value over growth, emerging markets, commodity producers, energy, uh and and tips. I guess is that sort of a safe kind of summary of of how you would

be positioning right now. Yes, And I think that over the next couple of months there's going to be two narratives that will fight each other in the market. So the two narratives that I see battling it out is the growth differential narrative and the relative real yield. Let me explain what I mean. The dollar is so important to the story for for me to be bullish and everything you're just listed, which I am. I also have

to be a dollar bear. But it's so clear the US is going to outperform in terms of global in terms of growth. I mean, we're looking at double digit nominal growth this year potentially. So how can you be a dollar bear? Well, you have to believe the growth differentials don't lead currencies. So what leads currencies? Well, I

think that real yield differentials will lead currencies. And I think that in the US we will have more localized inflation, We will have a very unorthodox physical and monetary policy to a greater degree than anywhere else in the developed world or in major economies. And so I think that that will pull dollar lower. And this is contraintuitive for many investors. Growth differential story has been the way they've traded currencies over the past, of the past expansion, that

the all dollar to dollar smile story. And you know, on the one side, with the USA performing right, and and and all I would say is that remember that worked when the central bank was orthodox, when it followed the precepts. We learned a nick on one on one when basically the central bank will respond to higher inflation expectations, high growth expectations, but becoming hawkish. If that's suddenly no longer the case, I think the relative real yield differential

becomes the leading sort of leading factor in currencies. And I think that there will be a battle Mike over the next couple of months. Maybe my view will not win out in the next month or two, maybe the dollar gets a little bit of a bump. It's at a critical juncture two hundred day moving average. You know that we're we're really now at this moment. And I think you'll have some really interesting guests and you'll be able to ask him which which camp they're in, UM,

and it'll be interesting to see it playoff. It is an interesting moment, and it seems like we are at a critical juncture when it comes to yields, both nominal and real, when it comes to the dollar, and different areas of the market that are going to drive whether you believe in the reflation trade or not going forwards. UM. I think that's a great place to leave it. And Mike, I know you know what time it is this week?

It is that time. It is that time stand clear of the craziest things we saw in markets this week. Charlie Pellett just told us what time it is. UM, So I got a couple to I'm gonna start with just this natural gas market. Um, with everything that's going on in Texas, and I know I'm getting out of my specialty of the alternative assets space. No, uh, Michael Jordan's or Michael Jackson or I got something that's number two.

But just you know, to see in Oklahoma spot natty gas go as high as fifty dollars one day, back down to four dollars per million b to you the next day, trap. I mean, it's all explainable with what's going on in Texas and the you know, they stopped allowing natural guests to leave Texas and then just the

demand from the power plant plants and everything else. But to me still to see natty gas hit one thousand, twent and fifty dollars spot out of Oklahoma and then back down the floor the next day, I I haven't seen that. I guess we saw something crazier when oil went negative, but that that, to me was pretty wild. It's the opposite direction, pretty crazy. Yeah. Uh. The other thing, okay, and I'll give you my second one while we're at it.

Have you heard of these things non fungible tokens? So it's basically you can put some piece of digital information on the blockchain. It's usually on on the Ethereum blockchain. Um. So you have people making digital art, which obviously can be copied a million times, but if you put the original on the blockchain, there are people willing to pay a fortune for it. Uh, you know, tens of thousands

of dollars um now, Sarah, and this is courtesy. There's a good Bloomberg story on that, and it talks about how Christie is now accepting cryptocurrencies to buy this type of artwork. They're not accepting the premium what they collect that you still have to pay that in dollars, but for the principal value of the art, they they'll accept

the crypto. Jeff Billbro, one of our listeners who's a very good source of crazy things, points out people are doing this with tweets now, so you can take your tweet, put it on the blockchain, and then sell it. So Mark Cuban did this. He sold a tweet that said basically, the store of value generation is kicking your butt and you don't even know it. He didn't say, but he said a different word that I can't say on the podcast. And then he looked to his blog with a blog

post that I confess I haven't read. But you know what this time is, Sarah, It's time to play some prices, right, What are you paying for Mark Cuban's tweet on the blockchain? You can own it forever. I have no idea. I'll give you one head. Usually I I bring these things up because they're outrageously high priced. H this isn't dollars, uh, I would say this one. Well, I guess it's all in the eye of the beholder. It's still kind of outrageous to buy a tweet? What at any price? I think?

But what's your bid for a Mark Cuban tweet? Let's go with thirty five thousand, thousand, Marcat. What are you bidding for Mark Cuban? Well, give it to my market view. I'm just gonna do two x whatever, Sarah says. You would hide though, so I'm a little more into here. You're like a double double levered Ponzi. There the you say, all right, well, Cuban is gonna be happy to hear about you guys, because he got a thousand bucks apparently for it. Okay, for this tweet. You prefaced it by saying,

you know, these things go absurdly highs. Then I'm thinking, Okay, this has got to be ridiculous. Every single time, this is what happens this particular one. Yeah, I really overthink it every single time. And I was just locked into with two X things, so I had no way to go in one. Technically, I appreciate the two x uh your two excellent lover loves leverage. I appreciate the leverage.

Did instinct though that I will say, Katie Gray felt filled in for you last week and she was willing to pay like twitter fifty thousand for a pair of Barack Obama basketball sneakers. So uh. But by the way, I just want to say, I just want to say everyone here is just following what wood Tank did years ago. Yeah, I mean wood Tank released that album, like you know, it was sold for two million bucks, Like come on, you know they need they need a little shot out here.

They did. We appreciate that. That's all I got, Sara, how about you? All right? So I'll just start with my favorite part of the week. I've got to say. So the Game Stop hearing on Thursday, clearly that the best part of it was when on Roaring Kitty himself in in in the light of the lawyer who had a cat face accidentally and that video went viral. He basically started his testimony by saying, I want a few clear up a few things. I am not a cat

and this is the best part of the week. But also just crazy that that was being said in the mix of a hearing on Capitol Hill. You gotta love it these days. But also I just have a pretty classic one these days. Classic name mix up. So Clubhouse which has become pretty popular these days, a lot of people using it to get conversation going and get people

to come on and listen to them have a conversation. Well, there's a public company called Clubhouse Media Group and they're a self described marketing and media firm that does target social media inflowers and they actually changed their name just last month from tong g Healthcare Group to promote its influentier and social media focus. So good timing because now the Clubhouse has become really really popular. Clubhouse Media Group shares have surged over one thanks to their name change.

So just a classic name mix up. You've got like the Long Island Iced Tea and block Islanchain. Yet I was hoping that Vlad to Nev, the CEO of robin Hood, after Roaring Kitty spoke. I was hoping he would say, he's not a cat, and I am not Jackson Brown, no matter how much I look like Jackson Brown, and the fact my brokerage was running on empty. You're laughing plainly. I know you don't, I am. I think some more more more people believe that Keith Gill and Glad Toe

are actually the same person. You should say, I am not Roaring Kitty. I was. I was hoping they'd come back to Keith Gil with the actual zoom filter of a cat on his face at some point. Unfortunately that didn't happen. Well, I have one for you guys were in the market, let's hear it alright. So um, I've been. I've been just seeing so many like bubble, bubble bubble

comments everywhere. So what I did is I went to Google Trends and I charted, you know, the mentions of stock bubble, and I can now definitively claim that we are in an epic bubble of people calling stock bubble. Just do it. You go through Google Trends throwing stock bubble, and the chart that comes out is extraordinary. I mean it is I think four times greater for x what

it was at previous highs. Right now, Wow, so like four x I assume maybe a previous high was around well, I know, Google trends goes back to what's the first year. It doesn't go that far um, but it does cover the nineties and it's it's actually two eighteen was was higher. It was the previous high, which we've been at a bubble for five years out right. But it's a great

example too, Like it doesn't actually correlate. You can you can put it with an SMP five hundred charge to see if it had any real information, and it didn't really. But that's that's mine. That's that's an interesting one. I didn't know how to, Like, it's a qualitative issue that a lot of people are throwing out bubbles, but you can quantify it. Who in Google treads that they could look at the chart. If everyone thinks it's a bubble,

is it impossible that it's a bubble? I mean you can you can wrap your head and not trying to figure out the contrarian take on that. I mean, yeah, and it may very well be, but I think, uh, we're at a point where I think this market segment will just I think you guys will have plenty, plenty material for this. I think you're right. I think it's almost hard to choose every week. Um, but I will say, Mike,

it's time to pay up. Because Mike promised that if we got to one fifty seven ratings on Apple Podcasts Marco, that he would air his flattering high school nickname with us. Now I'll say we're currently the last sight checks were around a hundred seventy two. We need to get to two hundred for the embarrassing one. Um, so everyone gets to Apple Podcasts. I don't leave us some ratings, so

so we'll hear the best from Mike. In the meantime, I remembered I had a few other nicknames I could do like a structured product out of this if we get If we get to fifty, I'll tell you I will reveal the most embarrassing nickname I've ever had, which my older brothers gave to me when I was I was very young. But for one fifty seven, you only get the flattering nickname, and that was Sarah. Most of my nicknames were awarded to me on the basketball court

and I don't have an impressive basketball resume. I played a lot, but pretty pretty mediocre lifetime stats. But if you were able to compress it to one highlight reel, I'm telling you it's it's pure fire. I mean, it exists only in my imagination because there were no video cameras on me at any time when I was playing but on one ground court in the late eighties in suburban Pennsylvania. I'll set the stage for you here. It's

like Hoosier's I was just on fire. I don't know what what became of me, but I was just killing it. And for every pick up basketball game, there's always one guy who's just kind of like talking trash the whole team against against the other team. So he was just kind of given the play by play of my performance. You know, I was going coast to coast laying it up, and he kept saying, Reagan's on a mission, Reagan's on a mission, It's a Reagan mission, and then that turned

into it's a recon mission, a recon. So to this day, a bunch of guys from high school still call me Recon is the nickname. I know it's disappointing, but that's what you get for only seven ratings. No, it's a good one, and it just means that we'll have to have more ratings. Also read this was a great rating that we got from Brick Brack. Been listening to this since it began. I love it in parentheses and don't

usually write reviews. But we need to hear Mike's nicknames, so we need to get more so we can hear the embarrassing. I'm sure that you'll get the poppych bump after this, so like I'm by the way, Mike, listen, we could we could go for like twenty minutes of like really really not that impressive basketball stories, but in your mind that's all that matters. Though, alright, No, I like basketball, all right, Marco, since you spoke up, we

need one nickname out of you. I know you had one grown up sometimes you know, um, my last name is like very nickname, herble, so that's what you know. It was just like Papa. That was like just the easy thing. And also I find I find that like anglophones find it really awesome. So they just call me by my last name. That's that's that's really all it is, and most of my basketball stories involved like backdoor screens

and giving people whiplash. So I don't know, there's nothing as cool as recon Recon Papa and Ponzi's quite quite the motley crew we've got going on right now. But next time we will get the other nickname out of Mike. I believe in everyone to go and rate the show. But Marco, it has been an absolute pleasure having you on this week. It's been a great time and thanks so much for joining us. Absolutely it's been a pleasure. Thank you guys. What Goes Up We'll be back next week.

Until then, you can find us on the Bloomberg Terminal website and app or wherever you get your podcasts. We'd love it if you took the time to rate and review the show on Apple Podcasts so more listeners can find us as you can find us on Twitter, follow me at Sarah Ponzack, Mike is that Rey Anonymous, and you can also follow Bloomberg Podcasts at Podcasts. Also, thank you to Charlie Pellett of Bloomberg Radio and the voice

of the New York City Subway System. What Goes Up is produced by Topur Foreheads, the head of Bloomberg podcast is Francesca Levie. Thank for listening, See you next time.