New Year… New Markets?

adage don't fight the fed is on its last legs. Well, Sarah, thank goodness on his last legs. As you point out, goodbye twenty. I never thought we'd we'd lived to see the day when this year year ended. Uh, it's the year that felt like two decades. Absolutely absolutely um. And we'll of course close out the show today with our tradition The craziest thing I saw in markets this week, Sarah, I'm gonna give you a little a little teaser on mine.

It's something for the crypto aficionados out there. I know we have a few of them in the listenership, and I feel like we don't give them the content they crave. So my crazy the thing this week is Crypto. Well, I will say, I don't think we've been able to go through the last five episodes or so without mentioning Crypto. So Crypto aficionados that do listen to the podcast, You're welcome, cannot be avoided. Made made itself unavoidable. But uh, this week on the show, a new guest for us. We're

very happy to have him. Uh. He was the strategist for a long time at Kenner Fitzgerald. He this year started his own firm called Alpha Omega Advisors. He's the CEO and founder of that firm. His name is Peter Ceccini. Peter, welcome to the show. Thank you for having me, Mike and Sarah. So, Peter, let's let's start with that. You know, I think a lot of our listeners will remember you was the strategist at Canner. But what's tell us about

Alpha Omega Advisors. What you started this year? This project? Yeah, it's it's been an awful lot of fun. Um. You know, it's an independent research and advisory firm. Um and uh, it's it's enabled me to uh focus on a number of my passions, UM, to do a bit of a bit more writing on topics uh that weren't necessarily of interest to institutional clients. UM, albeit many of those clients

are obviously consumers of my research. I've also partnered with um Rosa and Rubini, which is no real Rubini's firm. I do quite a bit of writing for them as well. I am writing a book and I'm having a wonderful time doing doing that. So I've also I'm sitting on a number of boards right now which has been a lot of fun. UM. One in particular, called Encino is a clean energy firm which does environmental testing UM and providing a bunch of advisory work on a spoke basis

to both hedge funds as well as two companies. Okay, the book, I assume that's a romance novel. Yes it is. It's all about my romance with the Federal Reserve. So what we all need, it's what we all need right now. Well, well, Peter,

congratulations on it all. Absolutely, I would. I imagine it's been quite the year to go off on your own in many ways, and I was actually hoping that we could start by reflecting and looking back at I keep saying, but I feel as though if you had told someone what was going to happen at the start of the year, that we were going to see the unemployment rate shoot higher, that people are going to be stuck at home, what businesses we're going to have to deal with, and maybe

left out what happened with the federal Reserve, what happened with fiscal policy, it would have been really hard to imagine the performance that we saw across financial markets. So hoping you could just run us through why it is that we've been able to see this unbelievable performance, really eye popping performance across the board, and and just get us caught up to where we stand now. Yeah, well, well, well, like every like everybody else, I have my two cents

certainly to share. I'm not sure how how much insight frankly that that that that it provides, but you know, I think, you know, coming coming into the year, I think that's a good place to start, because one of the reasons I've been so surprised by the ferocity of the rally um was because what I perceived as being a rather weak backdrop coming into the year and so I actually came into the year UM pretty cautious, and you know, few remember, but you know, not to go

back too far beyond investors memories. But but you know, at the end of two thousand and eighteen, it was quite a bit of of equity market volatility, which was prompted by ten year yields rising above three uh ten year yield went to three and a quarter. Equity markets

just just could not tolerate yields at that level. UM. The FED was then forced in a way to act by the treasury market with a yield curve in version both from three months to ten year and then eventually a little later in the year from two years to ten years UM manifesting. And you know, the FED hates it when the tenure yield is below FED funds, right, so they're almost forced to cut when that happened because

it's so bad for banks UM. And we saw a loan volume UM beginning to to contract into the end of two thousand nineteen, and we saw you know, flat earnings for the SMP five, deeply negative earnings for small caps, and corporate earnings overall for both private and public companies down you know, well over five. So my view was was going to be a rocky year to begin with. And I think, you know, one of the most one

of the most surprising things for this year. I know we're gonna get to this topic a little later, was the fact that in some ways the pandemic UM actually forestalled I think a number of the defaults that would have happened in its absence because of the ferocity of the policy response on the both the monetary policy side, UM and especially on the fiscal policy side, and the use of Section thirteen three under the Federal Reserve Act to UM as I've written to wed the FED to

the Treasury UM. So so I'll stop there. But but I think that was the backdrop we came into the year with and and and lastly, I guess you look at about on the SMP five D. I did feel the market was oversold and became somewhat constructive because because of the policy response that that I expected. But you know, in late June early July, I really became quite cautious because I just felt there was too much uncertainty to propel the rally much further than that. That obviously was

not correct. So Peter, let's uh, get you up to date now with with how you're seeing the market now. I was reading some notes you sent over to Sarah, and I um, one line you say is, uh, I remain tactically bullish based on sentiment and flows near term, but the bull narrative is about as hollow as I've ever heard it. I think that makes sort of a lot of logical sense that you know, you can't really

fight this tape. It's it's a it's a market that just wants to keep powering higher, whether it be sort of irrational youth work, retail flow, or whatever is causing it. But how do you position for for this type of environment? I mean, I agree with you that it seems like, um, you know, at some point the bull narrative is only going to take us so far, and that there will

be kind of a comeback to earth moment um. The tricky part to me and correct me if if you think I'm wrong, But I feel like those corrections can be so fast. You know, you you wake up one morning and the futures are already down two or three percent, and you've kind of missed that opportunity to take profits if that's what you wanted. To do so, is it a matter of sort of hedging it out with options or some some volatility futures or something and and and

otherwise remaining fully invested. How exactly would you sort of

position yourself in this type of environment? Yeah, I think it's Um, it's it's incredibly difficult, and it has been for a number of months, given the uncertainties, right, and I'm sure we're gonna talk a little bit about the political environment that that makes it even uh more tricky, if you will, and balancing those things, um, you know, the tactical bullishness that I sort of adopted, um just before Thanksgiving was a sort of you know, hands in

the air kind of moment, because you know, there are times when, uh, you know, when you're playing when you're playing chess and everyone else is playing checkers, you're actually you're the fool, right, So you you have to recognize, um when where when you know what I say, and about things like earnings growth, um, when when that is just less important than the narratives that are driving the markets.

And for me, I didn't feel like there was anything to derail the narrative that the vaccines were here, um, that that growth was going to pick back up, which which it has, although strangely enough, market has continued to rally even with some of the data coming out, you know, rather weakly in my in my view, um, notwithstanding the p M I that came out, but you know, to

fight that, it felt. I've lived through these, I've lived through several cycles, and you know this, this one feels a lot like I remember asking myself, how uh you know companies that had you know, no almost no earnings or negative cash flow apart me and almost no revenues. You know, it could be worth hundreds of millions of dollars And okay, it's not a perfect and allergy, but from a sentiment standpoint, it does feel quite the same.

And I think you had a lot of new entrants into the market then Visa V back in the days, Mike, you and I might remember. Um, not to exclude you, Sarah, but I think we're older than now. Um, Peter, you're blowing my lip. You're you're blowing my lid here all these off as a millennial, I had all the listeners convinced I was twenty five. It's not a good thing.

It's not. But you know, living through that period you know, it feels very similar to it where there was a new new set of investors entering the market, you know, and if you know that, you would trade stocks on your E trade account, which was the you know, the the early mover, then on your PC and your big CRT screen, and you know, and that made a difference. And I think that added to the froth then. And I think you've got a similar dynamic going on now. Um. I was look, I was keen to it, um as

early as September nineteen. I wrote a piece called the Robin Hood Rally, and in that piece I talked about these new entrants, and I also talked about how rates are actually not necessarily a great justification for high higher PE multiples, which sets up this answer a little bit as well. And we can talk about that later if it makes sense. But to get to your question, how

do you position yourself? It's very difficult to hedge the book right now, Um, when you look at the options volatility surfaces on almost any index, and and the cyclical rally in particular, and the Russell rally in particular seems way overdone. Um, it's very hard to buy put options.

And so what you have to do is engage in more sophisticated strategies that really do require a delta view or a view on direction in the underlying which precisely what can generally try to avoid when you're buying volatility, right And what I mean by that is the only way to really for you know, to pursu to fund a Russell strategy is to sell a call to buy a put replix spread, so that you're selling a little bit of alatility to to to fund your downside protection.

And you know you're making a directional bet that that that it's a lot more directional than if you're just buying a Russell put for example, And the same is true for the SMP. So hedging is extremely difficult right now. If you're very long, obviously you can sell calls to to sort of overwrite your portfolio. And so I think that is a good strategy for those who are long. For those who are underinvested already, the premium burn from just buying expensive put options is is probably too much

to tolerate. So that's that's difficult. Um. You know, I think being a little bit heavier in cash makes sense here. UM. I do still like gold, um and you know, I'm I you know, I g is a good place to hide, but you're just not getting a heck up a lot of yields. So I mean that's sort of how I'm positioned, right I you know, uh, you know, own some investment, great credit things going to continue to get support from the Treasury and the fed um. But I wouldn't be

dipping my tone into high yield. I think that's a that's a chase that's going to end poorly at the SMP. SMP ratings is predicting a nine perspective default rate and yet uh, you know, we have some of the lowest absolute yields in high yield um that we've ever seen. Yeah, this brings me to another line that you wrote that that I really loved, and I'm going to read it verbatim because I'm sure if I curse on the podcast, I'll get in a lot of trouble from my bosses.

But by the bull star and signed dash t for a trade into Christmas on fun flows, but don't buy into the nonsense nonsense narratives permanently. And this leads me to ask you, would you say that at least some pockets of the market are in a bubble. I mean, we've seen the NASZAC one hundred more than double now in a year's time span. We've seen a SPA boom. We see the I p O market just on fire. As you mentioned, we've seen a retail trading phenomenon even

taking advantage of the option market. One, are we in a bubble? And too? Even if we are, what can you do about that? Because bubbles, as we all know, can can last for a long time until they don't. Yeah, they they most certainly can. So you know, bubbles are

about context. Right. It was interesting, um, you know for those of us nerds, and I know you guys are just like me and your nerds about this stuff too, so we you know, we listened to Chairman Powell and his press conference and he pointed to the FED model, right, he said, you know, equities actually don't look all that rich when taking too into account the fact that um

greats are as low as they are. And um, you know, in in in the notes that I sent to you, and in a piece I put out, you know, I quoted Bill Dudley and you know he said, you know, I'll quote them stimulus provided by lower interest rates inevitably wears off. Cutting interest rates boost the economy of of bringing future activity into the present. Easy money encourages people to buy houses and appliances now rather than later. But

when the future arrives, that activity is missing. The only way to keep things going is to lower interest rates further until that is they hit their lower bound, which in the US is zero. And that's Bill Dudley, not me. And that's a very incomplete description of how monetary policy works, but it's it's good enough for for for our conversation.

So especially in that context, right in the context of the fact that the FED can't lower rates anymore and that we're really reliant I think on fiscal policy, UM, I think equities look rich as a general matter. UM. And you know, moreover, um, when when we're talking about why rates are low, rates were already quite low coming into the pandemic, because activity was already slowing because there was so little inflation. I think the FED has has

proven its inability to stimulate inflation. In fact, um, one of the things I'm writing about in my book, and I've written about in pieces over time, is the fact that the FED has actually created the disinflationary environment to some extent by creating over investment UM, which leads to difficulty for firms and getting price. And when you can't

get price, uh, profitability suffers. And when profitability suffers, you can't rage raise workers wages, which is at the end of the day, what the FED really cares most about. So back to the bubble question, are there areas of the market that are in a bubble? Yeah, clearly, um. And I think small caps right now have went from somewhat over sold too wildly overbought because I do not see how earnings are to come back for cyclical companies.

There are clearly bubbles in tech. I actually have a sort of proprietary basket of of ten companies that I've been watching for for a while, and um, they are way into bubble uh territory. And the way that I'm not going to name names for those kind police for obvious reasons, but the way I typically look at that is I look at companies with negative cash flow, and I look at the multiple of revenue. So it's a basket of negative cash flow companies that's trading at multiples

of revenue above ten times. And um. Not only the number of companies like that at at some of the highest levels I've ever seen. But the multiple multiples of revenues have expanded well above ten times in many cases. So yes, and many of those are obviously speculative technology companies. Peter, I love that analogy used. Uh just now you said, Um, you know sometimes when you're playing chess and the rest of the market is playing checkers, you're you're the one

that can end up looking bad. And you know, I obviously this was a big year for for checkers players in the in the market, uh, even scrabble players as uh Dave Portnoy uh was famously picking letters out of the scrab scrabble bag to to pick stock tickers. I. You know, now we have this another jolt of fiscal spending coming. You know, as we record this, you know, we still don't know if it will be six hundred

dollars or two thousand dollar checks sent out to most Americans. UM. I know you've paid a lot of attention to sort of the Dave portnoise of the world this year and and done a lot of thinking about it. Does this fiscal uh spending that's coming now, this this sort of you know checks in the mail? Um, is it gonna be off to the races again in the market? I mean, is that enough to sort of get us rallying again? Uh?

You know, fundamentals be damned, just you know, grab those scrabble letters out of the bag and start picking stocks again. Is do you think that's a risk? Man? I wish I could answer that. I'll tell you, I'll tell, I will, I will. I'll give it a shot, like, um, yeah, that's all. That's that's the best we can ask. Yeah. So so if we remember, you know, uh, for a look for a while, the the stimulus package that just passed was expected, you know, quite a bit earlier that

the conversation was is it coming before the election? Is not coming for it? Right? And you know, my view was likely wasn't going to come for the election, and that that probably wasn't gonna be all that good for equities. That turned out not to be the case. Right at the end of the day, no one really cared. Um. I think the mistake I made there was that there continued to be uh knock on effects from the previous uh stimulus package. And when you look at money supply

money supply, there's a couple of things. Money supply actually does not expand UM in the way many people think it does in response to monetary policy. It just it simply doesn't, because monetary policy is actually not a money phenomenon the way many think it's an interest rate phenomenon. Fiscal policy, on the other hand, when you deposit money into people's checking accounts, that by definition right increases the money supply, and a lot of that additional liquidity in

a real way went into the stock market UM. And that persisted for quite a bit longer, I think than many people thought. And I think what it suggested was that the amount of stimulus that came out of the first package was actually more effective than many of us

believed it would be UM. And so that, you know, that leads me to my assessment of the second stimulus package, which is a two thousand dollars is a ludicrously large amount UM and it you know, we can get into the political motivations behind it, but it's just it's uh. I don't necessarily think that's a great thing, and I hate to agree with Laurence Summers, but but I will in this case and and say, you know, it's it's just not it's not warranted. Um, So will that drive

equities higher? If you get a two thousand dollar check? You know, Mike, it might Uh, indeed, indeed it could, um in which to me would increase the risk of the market all the more because when the liquidity finally does run out, after we come back to a sense of normalcy sometime late next year, Um, you know that that the rug will be pulled out from under the market.

The question is just kind of when that happens, and uh, you know, what are the risks of this new strain and lots of other things, but but yeah, I mean that that's clearly one of the things that could drive these drive these Marketshire. I just pulled up some data from this company investment Yodley, which is a data aggregator on how the stimulus checks were put to use in the markets the first time. Just for some background, listen

to these numbers. So, people are named between thirty five dollars and seventy five dollars a year increased stock trading by more than the prior week after receiving their stimulus check. And then those making between a hundred and a hundred fifty k increased trading by eight two percent. And those that earn more than a hundred fifth K traded about

fifty more often. So if you look at these numbers, it is pretty unbelievable, and there is data that shows that it did have an effect on people trading more

often and getting into the market. But I also want to circle back, Peter to to a point that you made early on in the conversation, that being that before COVID nineteen hit, before any of us knew that we were going to be dealing with the pandemic this year, that we didn't necessarily have a very strong set up coming into And like you said, it feels like a lot of people forget that. And I've been looking at analysts earnings estimates for the SMP five hundred for one,

looking for a hundred sixty seven dollars to share. I mean, you're right in the ballpack park again of the prior year when we were at peak earnings earnings growth. From your perspective, are are people losing site of where we were coming from the base that we were coming from before even dealing with this recession, the bear market COVID nineteen um to all of a sudden assume that it's

going to be off to the races again. Yes, I mean most certainly in my opinion, UM, that that's one of the things that that just doesn't make an awful lot of sense to me. UM. The trajectory on the way in was as you just laid it out, fairly weak. And so you know, some of the earnings estimates that I'm seeing, as you said, this consensus is just below one seventy, are gonna require multiples that just don't make a lot of sense to me within the context of

the fact that rates can't go any lower. So if we're looking for multiple expansion to continue to drive the rally, UM, I don't think we're going to get that because the feds um efficacy is limited, right. It can it has firepower. No one's saying the FED doesn't of ammunition. It can print money, and it can go by treasuries for as long as it would like. UM. But at the end of the day, when you're at zero, Uh, that's the stimulative impact is is muted because you can't push it

below zero at least well you can. We know rates can go negative, but studies have shown that negative rates really actually don't do a heck of a lot and the FETE has stated pretty clearly it doesn't want to go. So I think, yes, I think that is one huge piece that people are missing. We're not just back to you know, this to the moon uh scenario for earnings.

If if anything, we're back to a situation where UM cash flows remain challenge and by the way, debt levels have exploded UM and many of your reporters have done a pretty good job following this that they're now two trillion dollars of I think what have been characterized as zombie companies where uh, you know, many of these are larger company these where uh earnings or cash flows don't cover interest. And of course the counter argument to that

is immediately, well, we're talking about a pandemic here. Uh you know, earnings are going to get better, but I would say, we can't count on that. And that's to me with this extra netload why I think SMP UM is rightly pointing out that default rates should increase considerably in yeah, you right that, Uh. I guess SMP expects UM speculative speculative grade default rates increased to nine percent by one from six point three uh this September. UM,

you're thinking even higher to something like twelve. Um. You know, it's interesting to me because that those defaults tend to sort of lag the the economic downturn to to some degree, I guess, UM, so we we still could be facing this this wave of default even as the economy starts rebounding next year. Has the FED basically you know, inoculated the credit markets though with these programs this year were how do you see that all working out for the

rest of the year. You know, will the Fed be able to to basically keep the corporate bond market calm even if these default rates UH spike up a little bit? Yeah? That you know, that's fantastic question. Um. Another question obviously, to which I do do not have an answer, but only an opinion. UM. That's that we're in the business of giving opinions. I suppose, but sometimes sometimes the default cycle leads the downturn and at other times it lags.

I agree with you on that. So the question here becomes does the default cycle UH to some extent UH catalyze a second slowdown? Um? And does it catalyze the second slowdown because of the reason for UH the default cycle, which is that earnings are failing to grow and I actually happen to think that that may be the case. Now, this this in turn hinges on a rather esoteric top or topic which I'm sure many of your listeners are

are are focused on. But it really depends whether or not the FEDS emergency powers if you will, that's not the technical term, but whether or not it can use the exigent circumstances exception under Section thirteen three of the Federal Reserve Act to continue to work with Treasury. And again Treasury has to agree to it and fund these special perfect purpose vehicles with first lost capital, which is

then in turn used to extend these loans. Okay, and these these loans through the primary and secondary blending facilities are really just sort of tarp in disguise. They just decided not to call it that this time. Um. But the question becomes, will those programs which are supposed to be emergent or emergency exigent, right that's the language of

the Federal Reserve Act, do they become more permanent? And interestingly enough, during the most recent pandemic relief package, Patrick Tooney actually stuck up his hand and said, you know,

I want this to change. Um. So, so there are those in the legislature that that legislature that are aware of this issue UM, and whether or not the investing public becomes confident that there will be a permanent backstop in the credit markets and the corporate credit markets will clearly way on how risk plays and whether or not that the fault cycle UM is dead forever or not.

You know, if it is dead forever, then I think we unfortunately have a situation where our system of capitalism is dead because I think without some level of default and recession, you know, that price discovery mechanism just doesn't work anymore. So you're you're you're begging a very deep philosophical question, which in fact is the is the topic of the book that I'm undertaking, well to be seen and Mike Love's philosophical questions I do. I like the

teaser on the book too. That was well well done. He snuck that in there. Well, we can't wait for the book, I guess, uh sometime in one can we expect it? Yes, with with with any with any luck, Okay, good, Well, we'll have to have you back on when it's out, and we'll we'll do a little book club, little OpenH Oprah's book Club I love it. Hopefully I'll get her done. But with the death of capitalism, Sarah, I think that's our cue to move into the crazy things. What what?

What a queue stand clear of the craziest things we saw in markets this week? So why don't you get us started, Sarah, what's the craziest thing you saw this week? So? I actually wanted to share one from a listener. First, we got an instant Bloomberg from Kendall bull Over at Bank of America Securities. Uh, he missed the cut off for last week's episode. I'll admit, just by a hair but I wanted to include it this week because it

is pretty crazy. Um. So, what he points out is that if you look at Quantum Escape now, this is a Bill Gates back electric vehicle startup, but the spread between the stock price and the warrant price right now is about seventy five dollars. The stock price has gone from under twelve dollars at the beginning of November to around one dollars today at the time of his writing me.

And then he says this isn't a small spack with market cup of around forty billion dollars now and the cost to currently short, the stock in the lending market is around minus n so just wild dist locations and again fits into the idea the narrative of of the spack boom that we've seen this year. Wait, the cost to borrow is mina is negative, is what he said? That's I think I want to borrow that one night. I'm not gonna sell it. I'm just gonna borrow it.

That's that's pretty fascinating though. Yeah, alright, uh, Peter, you got anything crazy for us this week? Yeah? I mean I never thought i'd live to see the day when President Trump was on the same page as Nancy Pelosi. I think that wins. I think that wins. I think you're right. Who would have thought to talk about a crazy ending to a crazy year? But here we are, Here we are. That's pretty good, all right? I got one, uh as promised for our crypto and through aficionados. I

guess is the proper turn not enthusiast efficient. I've been reading two headlines here, Sarah. One is from coin desk dot com and it says Carolina Panthers Russell oh Kung becomes the first NFL player to be paid in bitcoin. I saw this unbelievable. It's pretty interesting. Now here's the headline from the Verge, a another website. No NFL player Russell Okung is not being paid in bitcoin, So all right with the discrepancy? Is this guy wanted to get

paid in bitcoin? E each tweeted out in two thousand and nineteen, pay me in bitcoin. And he's a real sort of crypto enthusiast. He's a computer aficionado. Yes, uh, interesting guy. He goes to two classes to high schools and stuff and and talks to their software coding club rather than the football team. And he and he says, all right, I want one of you guys to be the next creator of Facebook. So an interesting uh NFL

player offensive lineman. Um. But the discrepancy is because, all right, he's getting paid by the Panthers in US dollars and there's some service uh the companies called zap and their product is called strike and it basically intercepts the payment from the NFL team and converts half of it to bitcoin and gives them half in dollars and and uh, half of his paying bitcoin. Maybe not the craziest thing, but I think it's an interesting, uh sort of part

of the evolution of bitcoin. If all of a sudden, pro athletes are asking to be paid in bitcoin and there's service that actually converts half their pay instantly uh into bitcoin, I it makes you wonder about you know, this rally we've seen in crypto, and you know, you're

always trying to figure out what's driving it. But uh, this guy behind this app says that other professional athletes, including he won't name them, but he says some members of the Brooklyn Nets and the Yankees are on board with that this app too, so they presumably will start getting some of their pay in bitcoin. Pretty interesting, Sarah, I don't know. I don't know if it's the craziest thing, but definitely one of the more interesting things. Very interesting.

And Peter, you said that asking you about bitcoin was fair game. So as I'm looking at my terminal right now knocking on the door of twenty eight dollars again, So what's your view? Um, you know, I certainly no offense to the the athlete in question, but I think if we're relying on professional athletes uh to set the set the stage for what's uh, what's smart business practice, I think we're going to be disappointed. Um, look, I

think big kind coin is is an incredible story. And what I've come to sort of believe about it is that it is really born of a desire to go back to the days of old. It's sort of of of what's it's a it's what's new is old sort of story because back in the day when the dollar was pegged to gold, there was reserved scarcity. That reserve

scarcity came from a limited amount of gold. And what is bitcoin It's a I would call it, you know, fictitiously in some sense created reserve scarcity situation because only a certain amount of of of coin can be created now. So I think that's really interesting, and I think that's

maybe an interesting way to take to take out. It's also a currency substitute, right because with rates of zero, you're not getting paid to her hold the currency anymore, right, um, whether it's in short treasuries or longer data treasuries, um, which is also the argument for gold. So from those standpoints, it's interesting and it's being adopted and and you know, who's to argue with that. That said, I think where the argument falls apart is that lots of different crypto

can be created over time. I mean, bitcoin doesn't have a monopoly on crypto, so that reserves scarcity sort of argument falls to pieces And at the end of the day, I mean, I hate to be, you know, the old man in the room here, but I just see it as a speculative instrument that people are trying to make excuses about UM as a legitimate um instrument. Uh, let's just call it what it is. It's a great way to speculate. Uh. And I wish i'd own more of

it um frankly. Uh, that that's the bottom line. You know. I wasn't smart enough to to to figure out what it was going to become as it was becoming it. But but I don't think we should again, we shouldn't fool ourselves that it's something that it's not, just because it's working now. Yeah, yeah, I think it all circles back to that exactly like you said, that speculative nature, that there's you know, Davy day traders of the world just watching watching the chart and and trading based on

momentum and whatever else and fundamentals be darned. I guess for now that can happen for a while. And you hear four hundred thousand dollar calls and you really don't want to miss out on that if that's the next big thing, right, all right, I'm not going to cut myself loose, though, I'm gonna hold myself through Mike. I do have go this week. Um so this is just

a nutshell. Listen to this headline sustainability spack Queen's Gambit growth Capital fires for a two d million dollar I p O. Now, I think you guys really tied me up for this one talking about chess and checkers earlier on uh in the podcast. But you get a combination of spacks, you get a combination of Queen's Gambit, which I must say was one of my best quarantine shows to watch. What could be better? Right? Something for everyone?

Something for everyone? That's amazing? When does that? I p o. Uh let me see if I can pull it up right here? So it's as they filed on Tuesday of this week with the sec to raise up I PO. I don't see. Yeah, I don't seem a date yet. We don't have the effective date yet. We'll have to circle back on that one. That's that's pretty good. That that boy, it's like you think you hear the bell ringing for the top, Peter, and it just keeps getting crazier.

What uh what you're hearing? I mean the Queen's Gambits back? Alright? Good one alone, Mike, Bitcoin is fair game. Queen's Gambits back. Not well with that, Sarah, I think our gambit here is over as well. Uh, Peter Chessiny. Thank you so much for joining the show. We really appreciated it. Good luck with the book, and we'll have to talk to you again when it comes out next year. Thanks a lot, Mike, I really enjoyed it. Thank you very much, Sarah, talk

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