Podcasts about Macro

Midterm elections, backlash against data centers and a U.S.-China summit. Michael Zezas and Ariana Salvatore discuss themes that could test investor confidence in the coming months.Read more insights from Morgan Stanley.----- Transcript -----Michael Zezas: Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Michael Zezas, Deputy Global Head of Research for Morgan Stanley.Ariana Salvatore: And I'm Ariana Salvatore, Head of Public Policy Research.Michael Zezas: Today, we'll look ahead to public policy catalysts that matter for investors this fall.It's Wednesday, September 2nd at 10:30am in New York.Okay, Ariana, there's a few days left in the summer, and investors are already starting to think about what's going to happen this fall. And there's a pretty heavy calendar; everything from midterm elections to some pretty important diplomatic dates. High level, what do you think people need to focus on?Ariana Salvatore: So, I'll start with probably the most consequential catalyst of the list that you mentioned, and that's the midterm elections. Obviously, not until November 3rd, but the debate is going to start to emerge over the coming weeks – in terms of if Democrats were to win just one chamber versus both chambers; if Republicans were to keep control; what could that mean for markets? And what are the durable policy themes?I think in this context, the biggest debate far and away is on data center pushback. And this has transitioned from more of a macro thematic. So, investors trying to understand the potential implications for the CapEx build-out, to more of a micro really granular question, right? Which races are the ones that we need to watch? Where are there states or jurisdictions that projects that are pending could be possibly called into question?And that's, sort of, the continuous debate that I've had recently with investors, trying to pinpoint it more precisely to figure out where exactly the build-up could be impacted.Michael Zezas: So, I hear from investors this general concern that the midterm elections will reveal that it's become a consensus preference amongst American voters and members of both parties to slow down on data center spending. Or perhaps even stop it or something more severe like that.What type of midterm election outcome would point to that as a possibility?Ariana Salvatore: Well, I would start by saying the politics here are scrambled in the sense that there's no clear fault lines when it comes to Democrats or Republicans around data center opposition, right? We are seeing some pretty notable pivots even from lawmakers that in the past were supportive of data centers. So that's why I think we have to zoom into these really specific races.And there I would say there's some governorships that matter actually more than some of the Senate races; because remember, governors also in certain states can appoint public utility commissioners. And in places like Texas, that actually could be a really consequential outcome for the 2026 midterm elections, more so than who ends up sitting in Congress on a very federal level.Michael Zezas: Okay. And so, would you say it's fair then that folks running for office who are challenging incumbents in both parties, who are expressing a desire for more regulation on data centers, that it kind of cuts across both parties? So, this is more about folks challenging incumbents than it is about one party or the other having a specific view on AI and the AI industrial build-out via data centers?Ariana Salvatore: That's right. It's hard to sort into these really generic party umbrellas, and there are a few nuances under the surface. If you look at something like Ohio. The governor's race there, both the Republican and Democrat candidates are proposing a conditional build-out, basically. So, if certain projects meet criteria, they're going to be allowed to proceed.In other races, like in Texas and Pennsylvania governorships, you're seeing the opponents basically propose a more restrictive form of the pause or directive that's already in place. So, I would say it's not very clean in terms of Democrat or Republican-led. And that just gives us conviction that this is going to persist and remain an issue even after November. Even though the federal policy incentives we don't think are likely going to change.Michael Zezas: So, we could see investors taking a signal about the AI data center build-out from an outcome where incumbents don't do particularly well.Now, I know we're still doing work on this, but what's the current thinking about – even if we were to see a result like that, how much should investors be concerned that the expectations around spending on data centers might not be realized because of new policy, other regulatory changes that would come as a result of the midterms?Ariana Salvatore: So, I would say overall, we are still very constructive on AI CapEx, right? So, our internet team is still forecasting over a trillion dollars of spending for the hyperscalers next year, and there are a few reasons for that, one of which has to do with this AI sovereignty theme that we've been writing about.So, this notion that governments are increasingly wanting to control their own stack and their own AI capabilities, so that's driving a bit of the spend. On the other hand, we are starting to see mitigation measures from some of these companies to appease some of that local community backlash. And there we don't see a one-size-fits-all approach.We see very tailored solutions depending on what the source of the pushback is. Just to give a few examples. When you have communities that care about electricity price increases, for example, many hyperscalers have signed on to the Ratepayer Protection Pledge. When you have communities that care about the environmental impact, you've got companies like Google who said they want to put forward a regulatory framework for water usage; Amazon also disclosing their water usage in data centers.And so, like I said, there's not really a uniformity to these responses, but enough that we think will mitigate the concern and still leaves us constructive on the overall build-out.Michael Zezas: Right. And you actually bring up a really interesting point on the idea of AI sovereignty. Some of the kind of similar concerns that are driving voter anxiety around the build-out of AI, might also reinforce some of the spending that has to happen there. To the extent that voters and policymakers are concerned that AI should be controlled and aligned with American values would require some spending to make sure that there's sufficient supply chains and other variables in play that the U.S. is in control of.Is that fair?Ariana Salvatore: That's right. That's one of the clear policy consequences we see from this shift in sovereign AI and governments seeking that control. The other one is, of course, the potential for further tech restrictions and divergence between the U.S. and China on AI specifically.Michael Zezas: So, on the topic of China and the U.S., one date that you point out here is September 24th, a date when the U.S. and China are going to be meeting again. What's on the table for discussion? What do investors need to know? Obviously, there have been concerns over the past year about the level of tariffs and trade tensions between the two.Is there anything here that we need to pay specific attention to?Ariana Salvatore: So, we think the overarching goal for both sides is to maintain this managed stability that was established in the May summit too. At that point, the clear deliverables were around trade, right? So agricultural purchases, Boeing purchases, et cetera.We think there's likely some small incremental change to those deliverables, in particular when it comes to AI dialogue. But notably, we think there's potential for escalation into that summit, again, within the bounds of what we call tactical escalation. But we do think that there's plenty of room for more policy escalation between both the U.S. and China in line with some recent action that we've seen over the past few weeks.Michael Zezas: Got it. And there's also a couple of important considerations around fiscal policy, funding, the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). Can you talk us through that a bit?Ariana Salvatore: Yeah, so fiscal's been in the headlines recently as well, just given the Treasury buybacks and crossing that $40 trillion threshold. And I think in that context, it sort of puts a renewed spotlight on government funding.There we see a potential latent risk of another shutdown come December, right? So, we saw a continuing resolution pass both the House and the Senate and sort of punt that debate until after the elections.And then the NDAA is the annual bill that funds the Pentagon. It has to be done in December on a bipartisan basis. So, the elections have the potential to shift the incentive structure for some lawmakers, and we could see these, kind of, re-emerge as really big debates towards the end of the year.Michael Zezas: Now, interestingly enough, we've got a bunch of catalysts to pay attention to: midterms, the potential for data center pushback as a consequence of it, a U.S.-China summit, which we think is going to result in the continuation of managed stability, and fiscal catalysts where, you know, the debt and the deficit have been in scope and concern, particularly for equity investors. All of that is happening against a backdrop where the historical norm going into midterm elections – is one where the equity market tends to struggle a bit. Is that fair?Ariana Salvatore: Yeah. So, we tend to see a little bit of negative seasonality into the midterm elections, and our equity strategy team has pointed out the potential for a knee-jerk reaction if you were to see Democratic outperformance in November. We think that's not likely to be durable. We think it's more so the case that investors are going to pull forward the anticipation of Democrats doing well in the 2028 presidential election.We don't think that's going to be a long-lasting theme in the market, but it's typically in line with what we see during elections.Michael Zezas: So, this idea that there are going to be seasonal challenges to the equity market is important to take on board, particularly when there are a lot of policy narratives which in the investor's mind could reinforce the price action that comes with weak seasonality.But our view is that you need to keep your eye on the secular trends here underpinning economic growth, including the AI build-out, which we think at the moment is going to be less sensitive to some of these policy outcomes than it might seem – given strong campaign rhetoric around restricting data centers.Is that a fair statement?Ariana Salvatore: Yes, that's right.Michael Zezas: Great. Well, Ariana, thanks for taking the time to talk.Ariana Salvatore: Pleasure speaking with you, Mike.Michael Zezas: And thanks for listening. Ariana, what should our audience do next?Ariana Salvatore: If you enjoyed the podcast, leave us a review wherever you listen and share Thoughts on the Market with a friend or colleague today.

Au Sénégal, après deux ans d'âpres négociations, le Fonds monétaire international et Dakar ont trouvé un accord sur un prêt de 2,2 milliards de dollars pour appuyer le pays, qui se débat avec une dette vertigineuse de plus de 130% du PIB.  Alors que la huitième mission du FMI depuis l'élection de Bassirou Diomaye Faye et la révélation en septembre 2024 des dettes cachées par l'administration précédente s'est achevée mardi 1ᵉʳ septembre, Majdi Debbich, le représentant du FMI au Sénégal, décrypte ce nouvel accord de coopération. RFI : Le Fonds monétaire international s'est mis d'accord avec le Sénégal pour l'obtention d'un nouveau prêt d'un montant de 2,2 milliards de dollars. Ce prêt, c'est une bonne nouvelle pour le Sénégal. Et pourquoi ? Majdi Debbich : Effectivement, c'est une excellente nouvelle. Cela fait deux ans que nous travaillons avec les autorités sénégalaises, d'abord sur la question du fameux « misreporting » de la dette cachée. En octobre 2025, les autorités sénégalaises ont demandé au FMI un nouveau programme. Aujourd'hui, c'est une étape importante, une première étape dans tout le process qui, in fine, doit conduire à la validation par notre conseil d'administration de ce nouveau programme. Vous parlez de première étape. Ça veut dire que le Sénégal va devoir attendre encore plusieurs mois avant que les premiers décaissements tombent sur ses comptes ? Généralement, vous avez donc dans nos process un certain nombre de mois qui s'écoulent entre un accord au niveau des services et la présentation au conseil d'administration du nouveau programme. Puisque les autorités doivent réaliser un certain nombre de mesures avant que l'on puisse présenter ce dossier au conseil d'administration. Généralement, pour vous donner une estimation, sur des programmes typiques, on est sur 2 à 3 mois. Donc, dans le cas du Sénégal, on peut imaginer des premiers décaissements à partir du mois de décembre. Ça reste dans le domaine du possible. Le Sénégal a bénéficié pour la dernière fois d'un financement du FMI fin 2023, il y a près de trois ans. Ces 20 derniers mois, les discussions étaient difficiles, voire quasi inexistantes. Concrètement, qu'est-ce qui a changé pour qu'un accord puisse être trouvé ? Les discussions ont été très intenses et nous avons un dialogue très étroit avec les autorités depuis la révélation de la dette cachée. Vous avez eu plusieurs étapes réalisées par les autorités sénégalaises pour traiter cette question de la dette cachée. Nous les avons accompagnées. Avec les autorités, on a convenu d'un package de réformes qui doit être mis en place pour que ce type de situation ne se répète pas. Les discussions sur le nouveau programme ont commencé il y a moins d'un an, donc c'est plus l'aboutissement d'un processus que vraiment un déblocage à court terme. On a quand même le sentiment que les choses se sont accélérées. Qu'est-ce qui s'est passé ? Le départ d'Ousmane Sonko de la Primature a-t-il aidé ? Je ne commenterai pas les développements politiques du Sénégal. En revanche, ce que je peux vous dire, c'est qu'on arrive à la fin d'un process. Des développements récents, notamment en matière de réformes menées par les autorités, y ont certainement contribué. Pour vous donner un exemple, la consolidation de toutes les fonctions liées à la gestion de la dette au sein d'un même ministère et d'une même direction générale a grandement contribué à ce qu'on ait plus de visibilité sur l'endettement du pays. Il y a eu des gages donnés par le Sénégal et lesquels ? Je ne parlerai pas de gages, mais disons qu'on s'est mis d'accord avec les autorités. D'abord sur un cadrage macroéconomique, sur un diagnostic de la situation, sur leurs besoins de financement à moyen terme, sur les politiques économiques et les grandes réformes qu'ils doivent mener dans le cadre du traitement de la question du « misreporting » ou des dettes cachées. On a d'autres mesures correctives importantes qui ont été mises en place et qui continueront à se mettre en place, notamment dans le cadre du programme. La dette cachée du Sénégal, c'est la plus importante de l'histoire du FMI. Est-ce que ce n'est pas un drôle de signal que le Fonds monétaire international envoie en accordant un nouveau prêt au Sénégal, alors que le pays a dissimulé ou échoué à déclarer une importante partie de sa dette, au moins 11 milliards de dollars ? Non, je pense que c'est le contraire. Nous travaillons très étroitement avec les autorités depuis deux ans. On salue la décision qui a été la leur, qui a été une décision difficile en septembre 2024, de révéler cette dette cachée. Et au cours des deux années passées, pour rappel, on a eu trois vagues d'audit : l'Inspection générale des finances, la Cour des comptes et ensuite un inventaire réalisé par le cabinet d'audit Mazars. Donc, je pense que les autorités ont montré qu'elles souhaitent tourner la page de cet épisode et être davantage transparentes. Ensuite, c'est un pays qui connaît une situation économique et financière difficile. La dette du Sénégal n'est plus soutenable ? Alors, il est évident, et je pense que c'est un diagnostic partagé avec les autorités, que le fardeau de la dette sénégalaise est considérable. On parle d'un niveau qui avoisine les 130 % du PIB, avec des dépenses d'intérêts qui représentent un quart des recettes fiscales. Ce sont autant de dépenses qui ne sont pas consacrées à des dépenses sociales ou à des investissements qui sont générateurs de croissance et d'emplois. Les autorités ont annoncé qu'elles souhaitent traiter cette dette avec leurs créanciers. Nous en prenons acte, notamment dans le cadre du programme que nous allons accompagner. Les autorités ont annoncé leur intention de solliciter un traitement de la dette afin de rétablir sa viabilité. Ça veut dire quoi concrètement ? Défaut de paiement et restructuration ? Ça veut dire que les autorités, effectivement, reconnaissent que le niveau d'endettement qui est celui aujourd'hui du Sénégal est un fardeau qui pèse sur le budget et qu'il est nécessaire de traiter cette dette afin de pouvoir dégager des marges de manœuvre pour des dépenses prioritaires plus importantes.   À lire aussiLe FMI et le Sénégal reprennent leur coopération, un prêt de 2,2 milliards de dollars en vue pour Dakar  

As AI agents gain access to sensitive enterprise systems, companies need new ways to control what they can do. Meta Marshall breaks down the emerging market for agentic identity security.Read more insights from Morgan Stanley.----- Transcript -----Meta Marshall: Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Meta Marshall, Morgan Stanley's U.S. Cybersecurity and Telecom & Network Equipment analyst. Today: AI assistants are starting to act on our behalf at work, which brings up a critical question. What should these agents be allowed to do? And how should those permissions be granted? It's Tuesday, September 1st, at 10am in New York. More and more, AI is helping us get through the workday. We ask it to summarize documents, analyze data and take notes during meetings. Increasingly, though, these tools are moving beyond just answering questions to acting on our behalf. Suddenly, the security challenge shifts from managing a tool to governing a whole new digital workforce. In coming years, this problem should get bigger as we estimate seeing 79 AI agents and 109 machine identities for every human employee. Now, traditional identity security at work was built to answer two basic questions: Who are you, and what can you access? Think of it as your office badge. It identifies you and determines what doors you can open. AI agents, however, make that question much harder to answer. They can operate autonomously, move across applications and databases, collaborate with other agents. They take actions without direct human involvement.So, companies need to know not only what an agent can access, but why it needs access, for how long, and what it actually did. That's the core foundation of agentic identity solutions. The risk environment from this problem is already substantial. About 80 percent of breaches in the work environment today involve stolen or misused credentials. Nine out of 10 organizations experienced an identity-related breach in the past year, and 83 percent experienced at least two. Now add potentially hundreds of machine and AI identities for every human; each operating continuously and at machine speed – and the problem is much larger.One solution to managing AI agents is zero standing privilege. Instead of giving an agent permanent access, you give it permission for a specific task and revoke that permission when the job is done. Here's the issue though: Today, only 39 percent of privileged access is managed through this just-in-time or zero standing privilege architecture. And the reality is that humans can't approve every request. More of those decisions will need to happen automatically, in real time, through what's known as runtime governance. We estimate, as a result, that agentic identity alone could become roughly a $33 billion global opportunity in our base case, which brings the overall identity market opportunity to more than $60 billion in coming years. This need for agentic identity coming from AI could also push a historically fragmented industry towards a more unified platform. In one industry survey, 85 percent of organizations said fragmented identity systems delay their human response to identity threats, with respondents citing an average of 12 hours needed to respond per incident. We think that favors platforms that can manage human and machine identities together and make security decisions dynamically, overall making a more secure environment. This transition won't happen overnight. Agentic identity products are still early, and we don't expect an immediate financial impact. But as enterprises move from experimenting with AI agents to deploying them more broadly, spending to secure those agents could become a more meaningful growth tailwind in 2027. The longer-term growth opportunity comes down to a simple dynamic: more agents, with more autonomy, will require more control. And that could make identity security essential to scaling AI across the enterprise. Thanks for listening. If you enjoy the show, please leave us a review wherever you listen and share Thoughts on the Market with a friend or colleague today.

This week, Jessica Noviskis, Tony Zhang and Rich Excell once again explore all of the macro that matters for markets. It is a fixed income heavy episode because bond yields are where all investors are focused. Have a listen to see what you think Make sure to claim your continuing education credits as well!

Macro 'is getting a bit of a gut check today,' says Charles Schwab's Joe Mazzola, pointing to a steady climb in crude oil prices and Treasury yields as key drivers. He warns investors of a low VIX as something to mind amid all the geopolitical uncertainty and suggests hedging strategies as a way to protect portfolios. Joe tells investors to mind the S&P 500 (SPX) as well, believing a push below current levels will lead to a further flush.======== Schwab Network ========Empowering every investor and trader, every market day.Options involve risks and are not suitable for all investors. Before trading, read the Options Disclosure Document. http://bit.ly/2v9tH6DSubscribe to the Market Minute newsletter - https://schwabnetwork.com/subscribeDownload the iOS app - https://apps.apple.com/us/app/schwab-...Download the Amazon Fire Tv App - https://www.amazon.com/TD-Ameritrade-...Watch on Sling - https://watch.sling.com/1/asset/19192...Watch on Vizio - https://www.vizio.com/en/watchfreeplu...Watch on DistroTV - https://www.distro.tv/live/schwab-net...Follow us on X –   / schwabnetwork  Follow us on Facebook –   / schwabnetwork  Follow us on LinkedIn -   / schwab-network  About Schwab Network - https://schwabnetwork.com/about

Younger generations are reshaping caffeine consumption. Our U.S. Household Products and Beverage Analyst Dara Mohsenian discusses how the growing appetite for energy drinks could influence beverage habits for years to come. Read more insights from Morgan Stanley.----- Transcript -----Dara Mohsenian: Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Dara Mohsenian, Morgan Stanley's U.S. Household Products and Beverage Analyst. Today, we're going to talk about how the next generation of U.S. consumers is really redefining their daily caffeine boost. It's Monday, August 31st at 10am in New York. For generations of Americans, caffeine has been synonymous with coffee. You wake up, make a pot, or stop at a coffee shop and start your day. But the picture today is different. Younger consumers have grown up with many more choices to jumpstart their day. Walk into a convenience store, gym, or college library these days, and you'll see that energy drinks are increasingly becoming an alternative for getting their caffeine boost. The reason people are drinking more of these caffeinated beverages is pretty straightforward. They want more energy. Among consumers who increased their energy drink consumption over the prior three months, 61 percent said they needed more energy. Experimentation is important, too. 44 percent cited trying new flavors, and 37 percent said they were trying new brands. Our survey of roughly 3,000 U.S. consumers points to significant runway for energy drinks going forward. When we spoke to current energy drink consumers, a net positive 19 percent expected to increase their consumption over the next three months. That's well above our prior surveys and is true for both men and women. Perhaps more interesting is who expects to drink more. Demographics have always been a key driver of energy consumption. The younger generation is increasingly choosing energy drinks over, historically, coffee and carbonated soft drinks. In our survey, importantly, if you look at the 25- to 34-year-old and 35- to 44-year-old age groups, they actually showed the strongest forward intentions to increase consumption. This means that the consumers who embrace energy drinks at the very young ages don't appear to be aging out of the category as they become older. They're taking the habit with them, essentially. It's also important to point out that caffeinated drinks is not a zero-sum game. Yes, the generational preferences are shifting, but the total pie is really growing here. Energy drinks is the biggest share gainer within caffeinated drinks, but only 20 percent of incremental energy drink consumption in our survey came directly from switching from coffee, and 22 percent directly from switching from carbonated soft drinks. So, most of the demand is actually incremental to caffeinated drinks in general. Going forward, we do expect energy drinks to be the highest growth segment within caffeinated drinks, growing at a high single-digit rate. We're even seeing it replace areas such as alcohol and snacks as it's moved to that affordable indulgence. And that's particularly driven by GLP-1, also accentuating the need for caffeine for consumers who are losing weight and have less energy.So, we see robust high single-digit energy category growth as likely to continue. That's been the compound rate, 9 percent over the last 15 years. Going forward with the demand drivers we talked about in a rational pricing environment, we see that likely to sustain. And much of the energy top-line momentum has been supported by new products and innovations. That includes zero sugar drinks. They're perceived as better for you. They're attracting new consumers, particularly women. And also, older consumers are sticking with the products as they age. Energy drinks have also become more affordable versus other beverage categories, particularly beverages, where the price increases have been sharper. Convenience is another part of the appeal. Among consumers who recently switched from coffee to energy drinks, 57 percent cited more caffeine per beverage and 45 percent pointed to convenience. Nearly half preferred the flavor of energy drinks, while 45 percent cited greater flavor variety. There may also be room for energy drinks to show up in more places. In our survey, 47 percent of consumers said they would buy more energy drinks if they were available in vending machines, 46 percent in fast food and fast casual restaurants, 37 percent in coffee shops, and this is showing up in custom energy drinks at a lot of the coffee shops covered by my colleague Brian Harbor. Again, it's expanding the pie. It's not just about taking share from carbonated soft drinks or coffee. So, America's caffeine habit is really enduring, and it's expanding. Younger consumers, they have more flavors, more formats, more ways to fit caffeine into different parts of the day, and those caffeinated preferences don't appear to be tapering off as consumers age. Thanks for listening. If you enjoy the show, please leave us a review wherever you listen and share Thoughts on the Market with a friend or colleague today.

Andreas Steno and Mikkel Rosenvold are back to unpack Kevin Warsh's surprisingly hawkish message at Jackson Hole and what it could mean for markets. They also turn to the latest escalation in the Middle East following U.S. attacks on Larka Island. Is the war restarting, and could renewed geopolitical risk disrupt the market setup just as investors were beginning to embrace the bull case?

Macro tracking can feel confusing at first, but it doesn't have to be. In this FAT LOSS SCHOOL episode, I'm breaking down the basics of protein, carbohydrates, and fat—and explaining why tracking macros can be a more useful fat-loss tool than simply counting calories. You'll learn what macros are, why each one matters, how protein supports muscle preservation after 50, whether you should stay under your macro targets, how to handle protein supplements, fiber, restaurant meals, alcohol, and exercise, and why eating less and exercising more is not always the answer. I'll also explain why your macro targets should be customized to YOU rather than copied from a friend or pulled from a random online calculator. Inside the FASTer Way program, you receive customized macro targets, weekly meal plans and menus, strategically programmed workouts, and coaching to help you put it all together without having to figure it out on your own. If you're a woman over 50 who wants to lose fat, preserve muscle, improve body composition, and finally understand how to fuel your body, consider this your Macro Tracking 101 class. In this episode: What protein, carbs, and fats actually do Macros vs. calories for fat loss Why eating below your targets can backfire How much protein matters after 50 Whole foods vs. “if it fits your macros” Protein powders and supplements Fiber-rich foods Tracking macros while eating at restaurants Alcohol and fat-loss goals Why strength training and nutrition work together How customized macro targets make the process easier This is Part 1 of my Macro Mini-Series, so be sure to listen to the upcoming lessons on practical macro-tracking tips and carb cycling. Ready to stop guessing and learn exactly how to fuel YOUR body? Join me in the FASTer Way program for women 50+ here:  https://www.fasterway.com/pages/6-week?aid=AMYBRYAN  To participate in the free STEPtember challenge and other learn from other fun and healthy posts, join my free Facebook community for women 50+ here:  https://www.facebook.com/groups/fasterwaywithamybryan 

Andreas Steno and Mikkel Rosenvold are back to unpack Kevin Warsh's surprisingly hawkish message at Jackson Hole and what it could mean for markets. They also turn to the latest escalation in the Middle East following U.S. attacks on Larka Island. Is the war restarting, and could renewed geopolitical risk disrupt the market setup just as investors were beginning to embrace the bull case?

New Fed chief Kevin Warsh delivered a hawkish speech at the Jackson Hole symposium of central bankers on Friday, leading to a stronger US dollar and increased expectations of rate hikes this year and next year. Investec Investment Management's Investment Strategist Osagyefo Mazwai examines what this means for the US economy, as well as emerging market currencies like the rand. Investec Focus Radio SA

Zach Pandl, Head of Research at Grayscale Investments, joined me to discuss Bitcoin's recent price surge, what's driving the rally, and what could come next for the broader crypto market. Topics: - Is Crypto back in a bull market? - SEC Regulation Crypto - Will the Clarity Act pass in September? - Grayscale Zcash ETF goes live on the NYSE Arca

In the Macro MATTers podcast, Matthew Luzzetti (Chief US Economist) and Matthew Raskin (Head of US Rates Research) discuss recent events moving markets.In this episode, they discuss the upcoming Fed task force on inflation frameworks with Loretta Mester, former President and Chief Executive Officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland.

Niels Kaastrup-Larsen and Alan Dunne examine how a changing macro regime is reshaping markets and the role of trend following. They discuss unusual U.S. intervention in the yen, mounting sensitivity around Treasury yields, and questions surrounding Kevin Warsh's communication and the Fed's credibility. Alan identifies three fractures defining the new regime: persistent inflation, growing debt sustainability concerns, and the erosion of institutional norms. They also explore why trend following has performed differently this decade, particularly during periods of bond market stress, before comparing AQR and GMO's strikingly different long-term return assumptions and what they imply for portfolio construction.-----50 YEARS OF TREND FOLLOWING BOOK AND BEHIND-THE-SCENES VIDEO FOR ACCREDITED INVESTORS - CLICK HERE-----Follow Niels on Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube or via the TTU website.IT's TRUE ? – most CIO's read 50+ books each year – get your FREE copy of the Ultimate Guide to the Best Investment Books ever written here.And you can get a free copy of my latest book “Ten Reasons to Add Trend Following to Your Portfolio” here.Learn more about the Trend Barometer here.Send your questions to info@toptradersunplugged.comAnd please share this episode with a like-minded friend and leave an honest Rating & Review on iTunes or Spotify so more people can discover the podcast.Follow Alan on Twitter.Episode TimeStamps:00:00 - Introduction and what's been on Alan's radar01:55 - Why U.S. intervention in the yen matters07:04 - Zuckerberg, Meta and the $16.68 billion question08:31 - August trend following performance and market intervention12:16 - Why CTA performance is increasingly dispersed16:08 - Kevin Warsh, the Fed balance sheet and Treasury supply18:56 - Has short-term trend following structurally degraded?22:17 - Macro narratives versus systematic positioning24:37 - Fed communication, credibility and the Warsh reaction function30:16 - Bessent, Warsh, Druckenmiller and the battle over bond yields34:23 - The three fractures reshaping the macro regime41:42 - How trend following has changed in the new regime49:54 - Commodities, deglobalization and diversification52:29 - AQR versus GMO: radically different forecasts for future returns01:02:08 - Debt sustainability and what investors should watch nextCopyright © 2025 – CMC AG – All Rights Reserved----PLUS: Whenever you're ready... here are 3 ways I can help you in your investment Journey:1. eBooks that cover key topics that you need to know about In my eBooks, I put together some key discoveries and things I have learnt during the more than 3 decades I have worked in the Trend Following industry, which I hope you will find useful. Click Here2. Daily Trend Barometer and Market Score One of the things I'm really proud of, is the fact that I have managed to published the Trend Barometer and Market Score each day for more than a decade...as these tools are really good at describing the environment for trend following managers as well as giving insights into the general positioning of a trend following strategy! Click Here3. Other Resources that can help youAnd if you are hungry for more useful resources from the trend following world...check out some precious resources that I have found over the years to be really valuable. Click HerePrivacy PolicyDisclaimer

Our Head of U.S. Public Policy Research Ariana Salvatore looks at what the midterms may reveal about politician's appetite for tackling the faster-than-expected increase in the U.S. debt.Read more insights from Morgan Stanley.----- Transcript ----- Ariana Salvatore: Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Ariana Salvatore, Head of U.S. Public Policy Research at Morgan Stanley. Today, why fiscal is back in focus and what we can learn about the broader debt trajectory from the upcoming midterm elections. It's Friday, August 28th at 10am in New York. Fiscal policy has moved back onto investors' radars following Treasury's recent buyback announcements. Those came in the same week that total U.S. debt crossed $ 40 trillion for the first time, a milestone that arrived months earlier than most people expected. As my colleague Andrew Sheets puts it, that's a big number. But the more useful question isn't the number itself. It's whether all this debt is starting to act as a brake on the economy.We don't quite yet see a credibility problem in the Treasury market, but that's exactly why fiscal is back in the conversation. And it sits against a bigger backdrop. The U.S. continues to run large deficits in an economy that isn't in a recession. Our economists expect the deficit to stay around 6 percent of GDP through 2027. And voters are clearly concerned about elevated debt levels. So why isn't fiscal austerity coming up more in DC? Simply put, we think the political incentives point the other direction. At the risk of oversimplifying, fiscal consolidation or deficit reduction means either less spending or more taxes. And the political costs of those choices land immediately. We think neither party, therefore, has the incentive to take on that type of policy change – if we don't see a meaningful cliff or a risk to existing programs, especially into an election. But what about after? We think the midterms won't in and of themselves be a catalyst to fix the debt trajectory. But they can tell us something about where this goes next. And I'd point to two things in particular. The first is Social Security. It's not likely to be the headline issue in November, but we could see a useful test case for the debt conversation more broadly because the deadline is creeping closer. The latest trustees report projects the retirement trust fund will become insolvent in the fourth quarter of 2032. And at that point, it could only cover roughly 78 percent of scheduled benefits without a change in law. Now, that's likely to matter more in 2028 than in this cycle, since whoever wins the White House that year will be in office when it hits. But the midterms can still show us where the politics are consolidating. Recent polling points to a fairly consistent pattern. Voters want lawmakers to act. They prefer raising taxes on high earners over broader benefit cuts. And they're notably more open to trimming benefits when it's targeted at the top of the income distribution. That likely explains why a number of 2026 candidates have converged on lifting the payroll tax cap, while some Republicans have largely retreated from campaigning on things like a higher retirement age. Watching which of those messages actually wins, especially in Senate races like New Hampshire or Maine, where a significant share of the electorate depends on these benefits, could provide some useful hints with respect to which of these policy changes actually resonate with voters and end up reflecting the eventual fix. The second is the broader fiscal landscape after the election. If we get a divided government in November, that typically means more fiscal noise around the recurring deadlines, like government funding and the debt ceiling. Those two matter for markets in very different ways. A shutdown's bigger effect tends to be indirect. So, think delayed or lower quality government data since agencies can end up working from smaller survey samples. That leaves investors and the Fed making decisions with less complete information for weeks at a stretch sometimes. The debt ceiling is more direct. That shows up most clearly in the Treasury bill market. Bills maturing around a potential deadline tend to cheapen relative to other short-term benchmarks as investors have to price default risk into that narrow window. And that's the case even when a resolution is still the base case. So, here's the through line: fiscal likely isn't about to become Washington's top priority just because debt crossed $40 trillion. But the midterms are a chance to see whether the political incentives are starting to shift – on Social Security specifically, and on the broader appetite for political fights around funding deadlines more generally. Either way, we think fiscal policy is set to stay in the headlines in the years to come. And especially so as we head into the 2028 presidential election season. Thanks for listening. If you enjoy the show, please leave us a review wherever you listen. And share your Thoughts on the Market with a friend or colleague today.

MacroVoices Erik Townsend & Patrick Ceresna welcome, Daniel Lacalle. They discuss sovereign debt, inflation, and the rise of cryptocurrencies and stablecoins forcing a shift toward more decentralised monetary systems. ✅Sign up for a FREE 14-day trial at Big Picture Trading: https://secure.bigpicturetrading.com/membership/signup/fOY4YJYX  

Investors are keeping a close eye on Jackson Hole for signals on the economic outlook and the path for rates. Our Chief U.S. economist Michael Gapen joins Global Head of Macro Strategy Matthew Hornbach to discuss whether markets get what they want—or what the Fed needs.Read more insights from Morgan Stanley.----- Transcript -----Matt Hornbach: Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Matthew Hornbach, Global Head of Macro Strategy at Morgan Stanley. Michael Gapen: And I'm Michael Gapen, Chief U.S. Economist. Matt Hornbach: Today, we'll be discussing the Jackson Hole Economic Symposium and Chairman Warsh's opening remarks. It's Thursday, August 27th at 10am in New York. So, Mike, let's get right into it and talk about the upcoming opening remarks by Chairman Warsh at the Jackson Hole Economic Symposium that will be delivered to the public at 10 am tomorrow, Friday. How are you thinking about what to expect from those opening remarks? Michael Gapen: Well, historically, and by historically, I mean in a post-2008-2009 world, Jackson Hole has been used, not every year, but frequently as a venue to communicate to markets. The longest gap on the Fed's meeting calendar is between the July and September meetings. So, Jackson Hole falls between that and provides a useful opportunity to communicate what might be coming. That's what's normally been done. Warsh has repeatedly stated he wants the Fed to talk less and communicate less and say less. So, I don't think we will see or hear, in this case, a lot about his views about how the economy is operating today and how monetary policy may be conducted into year-end. So, I don't think we'll hear a lot about, say, the December; the outlook for the economy from September to December, and what it might imply for interest rate policy or balance sheet policy. So, little in the way of near-term forward guidance. I do think, however, he did say in the July press conference that the venue would be good to tackle some of these big questions that he has talked about, that he's created these task forces for. So, whether it is the balance sheet or the inflation framework, or communication or AI and productivity or data quality and so forth. This would provide, I think, a reasonable opportunity for him to start talking about that. I don't think maybe we'll get a lot of conclusions. But I would look for commentary that's more in the question; or in the spirit of those big questions and less about the near-term conduct of policy.So maybe not what markets want, but this is what markets will get. Matt Hornbach: Just rewinding a bit, the conference itself is on a somewhat of a niche topic. What exactly is the conference about? And, in terms of the papers that get released at the conference, do you have any sense as to where they might be headed? Michael Gapen: So, the topic of this conference, the economic symposium, as you noted, is Financial Innovation: [its] Implications for [the] Payments [system] and [monetary] Policy. So, I would expect there to be a lot of sessions for things like central bank digital currencies or stable coins or Bitcoins. Near money type innovation that has happened in recent years, which leads to things like competition for deposits from the non-financial sector vis-a-vis the financial sector. So, a competition of near moneyness to money, if you will. Its implications for the interaction between the non-financial system and the financial system, competition for deposits. Does it create risks around financial disintermediation? And therefore, how might the regulatory environment and monetary policy work in that world? So little more, I'll call it, esoteric and maybe arm's length from the day-to-day conduct of policy. But I would look at the speeches probably in that vein. Deposit competition, financial market stability, and what kind of regulatory framework might you need to ensure we can still conduct policy effectively in that world. Matt Hornbach: Sounds like an exciting set of papers… Michael Gapen: Yes. Yes. Matt Hornbach: … for professors to read through. Michael Gapen: This is why they don't often leak the schedule too far in advance, right? We all might decide not to listen. Matt Hornbach: Indeed. Well, it is the end of August, and people are probably still on holiday here and there… Michael Gapen: I'm doing my best, but you called me in today. Matt Hornbach: Yeah, the least I could do. So, you did mention that this might be an opportunity for Chairman Warsh to maybe spotlight a bit these task forces and the topics that they're tackling, one of which is the inflation framework. And that word framework, I think, is important because the investors that we've been speaking with are frustrated that the Fed has not really laid out a framework – for monetary policymaking in this new era of Chairman Warsh, and his leadership at the Fed. So, I'm curious, if we're not going to get forward guidance on monetary policy and what will happen at the next meeting. And we're also not going to get much forward guidance on the framework that the Fed is using to decide on what to do with short-term interest rates. What are we meant to think about the framework? Michael Gapen: Yeah, I think ultimately, of course, we're going to need to know this, and this is what economists would refer to as the ‘difference between forward guidance and the "reaction function." So, the framework is really, you've got a set of tools, how do you intend to use them to achieve your objectives? A conventional Fed would say, "Well, if interest rates are low and inflation's too high, then we should raise rates," right? So high inflation brings high interest rates, low inflation brings low interest rates. All else equal, there's still the employment side of the mandate, of course. And the market had that view, at least initially, right? As we were in the June-July period and Warsh was talking hawkishly, the curve generally flattened. Expectations for front-end yields moved higher, and inflation-fighting credibility maybe kept the back end stable or brought the back end down. So, you could argue the markets looked at Warsh as maybe bringing a conventional reaction function and a conventional framework. But in the June and July FOMC meeting and in conversations with the press during the press conferences, Warsh – I don't want to say backtracked. He just didn't validate that and did say that we will achieve price stability. Didn't quite say how he would use the tools to do that. And even suggested maybe interest rates weren't the primary mechanism with which to influence, create, deliver price stability. So, the curve then steepened out. So, I think the market is wondering what Fed chair we have and what his reaction function is? And if inflation's running hot, is it an interest rate answer or is it a balance sheet answer? I'd also just add one last thing, Matt, is it makes a difference what the rest of the 18 people on the FOMC think. [Be]cause I think you would agree, and I'll put forward right now, I think they have a largely conventional view. Half of the committee thought it was time to raise rates in June. So, we have a balance between not knowing the chair's framework and having to intuit it. Or hope that we hear more. But then also knowing the other 18 who could band together and have greater voting power act in a largely conventional framework. I think that's the debate and the dilemma that we're all dealing with. Matt Hornbach: Yeah, I think investors, have certainly expressed frustration about the lack of guidance in any form or fashion. Perhaps with the exception of the balance sheet; we have a general idea that the balance sheet will be smaller in the future. And we have a sense from what Chairman Warsh has said in front of the House of Representatives during his semi-annual testimony that any changes would happen gradually over time. But, in terms of the pricing of the July meeting, and what happened at the July meeting, investors were very disappointed that the Fed did not go ahead and raise rates in July. Now, the market was only assigning about a one in three odds of a rate hike in July. And so, the fact that the Fed did not go ahead and raise interest rates in July was not a surprise in the sense of market pricing. But I do sense that investors were frustrated; that because they didn't get much forward guidance going into the July meeting, that the market might not have priced more probability on a July rate hike because the Fed, in fact, did not signal that they were leaning in that direction. But I see it as somewhat ironic because it seems to me, and I'd like to get your view on this. It seems to me that Chairman Warsh doesn't want to provide that type of specificity. He'd rather have the markets tell him what to do at an upcoming meeting, as opposed to him telling markets what to do at an upcoming meeting. How do you think about that? Michael Gapen: Oh, I think it's… [It] strains credibility to think that by saying nothing, you get the market's interpretation of the economy, data, and events – without the market thinking what the Fed thinks about it. I don't think that there's a world where you get the unvarnished market expectation independent of the Fed. So, I don't personally agree in the analogy of the market should play the ball and not the referee. The Fed is not a referee in markets. The Fed is a player in markets. Monetary policy acts through financial markets to achieve a set of financial conditions to deliver price stability and maximum employment. So, the Fed and markets are on the field at the same time. The Fed, in some ways, is the 800-pound gorilla on the field at the same time. So, everybody else on the field has to know what the gorilla is doing in order to do what they're supposed to do. Yes, there's always some circularity between Fed communication and market reaction to that. But I think that's natural and normal and important in making monetary policy effective – meaning it has to transmit through financial markets. And so, you could diminish the effectiveness of monetary policy if you don't tell the market what, at least what your framework is and what your reaction function is. And the tools that you intend to use and how you would intend to use them. Then the market could be an inefficient transmitter of monetary policy. So, I disagree with the notion that by saying less, the Fed learns more. But that's my view. I'm one of many. That's my opinion. The chair obviously has a different view. Matt Hornbach: Well, I can certainly understand not wanting to be the referee, especially after what we saw at the World Cup. There were a couple of games where the referee… Michael Gapen: And nobody likes the referee. At least half the people are upset with the referee. Matt Hornbach: Indeed. Okay. So, Mike, I think we're going to leave it there. Michael Gapen: Thanks for having me on, Matt. Matt Hornbach: And thanks for listening. If you enjoy Thoughts on the Market, please leave us a review wherever you listen and share the podcast with a friend or colleague today.

"What's not to like" about Nvidia (NVDA) earnings? Andrew Graham says the report confirms his thoughts on the stock: it's a "must own" for investors. He outlines his bull case for Nvidia even as he outlines risks investors need to watch heading into the midterms. Some of Andrew's other top stock picks include Arista Networks (ANET), Cisco (CSCO), Snowflake (SNOW), and Palo Alto Networks (PANW).

Our Global Head of Fixed Income Research Andrew Sheets discusses when and how higher yields and mounting U.S. debt could become more than abstract concerns.Read more insights from Morgan Stanley.----- Transcript -----Andrew Sheets: Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Andrew Sheets, Global Head of Fixed Income Research at Morgan Stanley. Today, at what point do higher yields and higher debt actually matter? It's Wednesday, August 26th at 2pm in London. In its first 240 years, the United States of America accumulated roughly $20 trillion in federal debt. The country has borrowed another [$]20 trillion in just the last 10. The question for investors is when this debt load will act as a brake on economic activity? Or, worse, create stress that disrupts today's relative calm?So, let's start with the first question. For economic activity, the bar seems pretty high. You see, even with all the activity around AI, U.S. corporate debt as a share of the overall economy is broadly unchanged in the last decade and actually lower than where it was before the pandemic. The balance sheets of the household sector in the U.S. are even stronger. Household debt to GDP is lower than where it was prior to COVID and lower than where it was in the year 2000. And this may even understate the strength – because much of this debt is locked in at historically low mortgage rates; while household assets, the other side of the balance sheet, have soared to record levels.That may help explain why both consumers and businesses have remained more resilient than expected this year despite the higher interest rates and energy prices. This divergence of trend between public and private balance sheets is also global. Europe has also seen higher government debt offset by even more private sector de-leveraging, while Japan has seen rising public borrowing and pretty stable private sector leverage. To some degree, this divergence between the public and private sides of the economy reflects a policy choice. Governments determine how to balance taxation and spending. And many countries, not just the U.S., have reduced taxes over the last decade while allowing public borrowing to increase. A deterioration of public sector finances relative to private sector finances – it's not especially surprising given that choice. If strong balance sheets are helping U.S. households and companies be less sensitive to higher rates, where should we look for stress? Well, for all of this debt, the U.S. bond market is actually still pretty well-behaved. U.S. inflation expectations are roughly unchanged year to date. Expected bond market volatility is historically low.Indeed, one reason that recent intervention by the U.S. Treasury into the bond market was such a surprise to investors was the lack of these usual stress markers. Instead, the point at which these higher yields might have a larger market impact may be up to another factor: asset allocation. Today, 30-year Treasury bonds yield about 3 percent more than expected inflation over that period. Long-dated U.S. investment-grade corporate bonds once again yield more than 6 percent. And so, the question of when higher yields begin to matter may be less about when businesses stop borrowing or consumers stop spending. And be more about when investors decide that bonds offer better value than stocks. So far, Morgan Stanley Research is not seeing clear evidence of that shift. Fund flow data and market correlations do not suggest a significant reallocation away from equities, and strong earnings growth is helping support the equity valuation case. But these are metrics that we'll be watching. In the meantime, we think that rising U.S. debt and Treasury market intervention may weaken the U.S. dollar, especially against a high-yielding currency with much, much lower debt levels – the Australian dollar. Thank you as always for your time. If you find Thoughts on the Market useful, let us know by leaving a review wherever you listen. And also tell a friend or colleague about us today.

Anish Acharya joins Jen Kha to break down the next frontier of AI, from the evolving model landscape and open-source AI to why the application layer, and consumer AI in particular, may be entering a new phase. Anish explains why he believes there will be multiple winners at the model layer, why traditional moats like network effects, scale, and brand still matter, and how companies can choose between frontier and open-weight models depending on the economics of the task. They also explore why models are increasingly specializing, and how applications can combine different types of intelligence to create products that are more valuable than any single model. The conversation then turns to consumer AI: personal agents that can shop and manage your inbox, coding tools enabling a new generation of small businesses, and why Anish thinks we're seeing a renaissance for consumer builders. They also discuss the changing economics of AI software, the rise of "luxury software," and why the biggest risk for today's founders may no longer be thinking too big, but thinking too small. Stay Updated:Find a16z on YouTube: YouTubeFind a16z on XFind a16z on LinkedInListen to the a16z Show on SpotifyListen to the a16z Show on Apple PodcastsFollow our host: https://twitter.com/eriktorenberg Please note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. a16z and its affiliates may maintain investments in the companies discussed. For more details please see a16z.com/disclosures. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Paul Walsh, Michelle Weaver and Daniel Blake discuss how thematic mapping can help investors separate true beneficiaries from market hype and identify risks hiding beneath the surface.Read more insights from Morgan Stanley.----- Transcript -----Paul Walsh: Welcome everyone to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Paul Walsh, Morgan Stanley's Head of Research in Europe. Michelle Weaver: And I'm Michelle Weaver, U.S. Thematic and Equity Strategist. Daniel Blake: And I'm Daniel Blake, Head of Asia Thematic Strategy. Walsh: And today we're discussing why thematic investing may be entering a new phase – moving from simply identifying big ideas to systematically measuring them.It's Tuesday, the 25th of August at 2pm in London. Weaver: It's 9am in New York. Blake: And it's 9pm in Singapore. Walsh: Daniel, let's kick our discussion off today. Thematic investing has become one of the most important ways for investors to think about long-term opportunities. But your latest work suggests the framework itself is evolving. So, what's changing? Blake: Well, if you look at where we've started. So thematic investing has been narrative-driven, focusing on identifying major structural trends for investors. So, at Morgan Stanley, we've identified core themes of artificial intelligence and tech diffusion, the future of energy, societal shifts, and the transition to a multipolar world. So, what's changing is that investment approaches are becoming much, much faster. So, we're now seeing clients deploy agentic AI to drive trade recommendations. And sure, AI can read a new 100-page thematic report from Morgan Stanley faster than humans. But for the right conclusions, it's important to connect these models with high-quality data sets. And we think that's going to be helpful for human investors as well. So, this is where the third phase of thematic investing comes in. The first phase was identifying secular trends that cut across markets and industries. The second phase was creating investable products around those themes. But this next phase is about measuring that exposure systematically in real time. So, this allows investors and their AI agents to identify whether a theme's importance is broadening or fading and to track individual companies' exposure to that theme over time. Walsh: So, the thematic investing is moving from narrative-driven to a higher velocity data-driven approach. And I guess that's where our thematic mapping exercise really comes in. So, Michelle, when investors hear the term thematic map, they may think it's just another screening tool. But it's much, much more than that, isn't it? Weaver: Absolutely. The easiest way to think about it is it's a research framework that sits on top of traditional sector and regional analysis. Historically, investors organize portfolios by country, sector, or industry group, and those verticals are still very important. But increasingly, the biggest investment forces cut horizontally across those boundaries. AI touches software companies, industrials names, healthcare, financials, and it's even had a huge impact on the utility sector.Thematic mapping helps us identify where those exposures exist across thousands of stocks, and importantly, how significant those exposures are – all with the help of our analyst experts. And the innovation isn't simply identifying if a company's exposed to AI, energy transition, or defense spending. It's determining whether that exposure is central to the investment thesis, just supportive or insignificant. And that's very different from traditional thematic baskets. Walsh: So, we identify the exposure, but the idea of significance seems particularly important because investors constantly hear companies talking about themes on earnings calls for example and in their public communications. But how do you separate genuine exposure from a more marketing-driven language around thematics, Daniel? Blake: This we see as the most valuable and ultimately human-driven part of the framework. So, as an example, we know that many companies are outlining their AI initiatives, and not all of them will end up being AI beneficiaries. So, the key question is how a given theme will impact revenues, margins, competitive positioning, and valuations. And this requires the deep knowledge of both the industry and the company, as well as where things are going. And so that's where our analysts come in. Across all countries, all sectors, mapping the materiality of their entire coverage, that's almost 4,000 companies, to every global theme in real time. Sp. our job in the thematic strategy team is to coordinate the framework, help identify emerging themes, and draw out the insights and recommendations. But the core insights are really coming at the analyst level, company by company. Walsh: And so, to your point, Daniel, it's about the analyst overlay in terms of significance that is really important. So, investors really shouldn't think of thematic exposure as a simple yes or no question… Blake: Exactly. That's really the new innovation in this framework, and most companies will sit somewhere along that spectrum for a given theme. And there's value in tracking how that position is changing over time. Walsh: Yeah, rate of change is clearly critical. And Michelle, one of the things I found particularly interesting is that the framework isn't just about identifying winners. It's also about identifying companies that may be challenged by structural change as well. Why don't you help our listeners understand why that's so important? Weaver: Because every major theme, yes, creates a lot of opportunity, but it also creates disruption. And I think investors naturally focus on beneficiaries. Where are we looking on the long side? But in many cases, understanding who might be negatively exposed can be just as valuable. If you think about AI, there are obvious beneficiaries, whether those are the big enablers or they're companies adopting the technology successfully. But there could also be companies facing pricing pressure, margin pressure, or broader disruption because of that same theme. And that's equally true whether we're thinking about the future of energy, societal shifts and big demographic realignments, or the multipolar world. And a complete thematic framework should help investors understand both parts of that equation. And this is becoming increasingly important as markets move from broad thematic enthusiasm towards more selective stock picking. Walsh: Absolutely. The ability of the thematic mapping to help us understand both sides the equation clearly incredibly important. Let's bring it back to investors' portfolios. Daniel, how should investors think about thematic mapping as part of portfolio construction rather than simply stock selection? Blake: If you're looking at that portfolio construction level, whether you're a retail investor or you're one of the largest asset owners of sovereign funds, one of the biggest benefits is for revealing and managing hidden exposures.So, an investor might believe that their portfolio is diversified with positioning across many sectors and markets. But when you use the thematic map to underline, to explore the underlying thematic exposure, you might find that many of these holdings are tied to the same structural trend. So, the thematic map allows investors to better diversify portfolios while retaining the best expressions of desired themes. And as you mentioned, it's not just a screening tool. But it's pretty useful as a screening tool as well if you want to take exposure to a given theme overlay with valuations and preferences. It's very helpful for that reason as well. Walsh: Yeah, understood Daniel. And Michelle, as we look stock markets right now, how are you seeing the opportunities via the thematic mapping work that we've done? Weaver: Flagging potential rotations is another key part of what this analysis offers. And if we think about your question from a valuation perspective, AI adopters currently look relatively inexpensive, but they still offer strong expected earnings growth. And we're also seeing analyst sentiment beginning to improve. You're seeing a growing number of companies having their earnings estimates revised higher. We're also seeing a similar opportunity across our societal shifts themes. Valuations here are well below their typical levels over the past decade. And at the same time, we're also seeing earnings expectations improve here. Walsh: So, perhaps the biggest takeaways are that thematic investing is becoming more measurable, more transparent, and more integrated into portfolio management. It's no longer just about spotting the next big idea. It's about understanding where that idea exists, how much it matters, and of course, how it's evolving. Michelle, Daniel, thanks so much for taking the time to talk. Weaver: Great speaking with you Paul. Blake: Thanks for having us. Walsh: Thanks for listening. If you enjoy Thoughts on the Market, please leave us a review wherever you listen and share the podcast with a friend or colleague today.

Strong strategies don't fail because they're poorly written. They fail because they weren't designed with operational reality in mind. In this episode, Wayne Whitzell, Senior VP Strategic Accounts, SOLID Surface Care and First Vice Chair on IFMA's Global Executive Board, sits down with Amanda Muzzarelli, Global Operations Director at Macro, to explore what separates effective facility management leaders from reactive ones. Together, they discuss preserving institutional knowledge, creating psychological safety, developing future leaders and why understanding day-to-day operations is essential for successful strategy execution. They also examine how AI may reshape facility management workflows and why curiosity and leadership remain the profession's greatest competitive advantages.  Timestamps: 0:00 - Why role clarity is a gift 1:20 - Meet Amanda Muzzarelli 2:40 - From public affairs to facility management 6:10 - Why institutional knowledge lives in people 7:30 - Building psychological safety for knowledge transfer 9:00 - How to preserve institutional knowledge before it's lost 10:35 - Escaping the tactical mindset 11:10 - Why role clarity makes better leaders 12:10 - Leading global FM teams without micromanaging 13:15 - Developing leadership instead of doing everything yourself 15:05 - Self-reflection as a leadership skill 18:20 - Why great FM strategies fail during execution 20:45 - World Workplace 2026 21:15 - The biggest mistake strategists make 22:30 - Why facilities teams need a seat at the table 23:35 - Shadow systems and hidden operational knowledge 25:05 - How AI can eliminate repetitive FM tasks 27:10 - When will AI become part of everyday FM? 28:10 - Amanda's prediction: AI in FM within 3–5 years 29:20 - Why AI won't replace facility managers 31:05 - Who will lead AI adoption in FM? 32:10 - Why curiosity matters more than technical expertise 35:00 - Preparing the next generation of FM leaders 35:50 - Amanda's World Workplace sessions 36:45 - Closing remarks Resources from the episode: Connect with Amanda on LinkedIn Join us at World Workplace in Anaheim 17-19 November: https://worldworkplace.ifma.org/ Connect with Us:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ifmaFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/InternationalFacilityManagementAssociation/Twitter: https://twitter.com/IFMAInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/ifma_hq/YouTube: https://youtube.com/ifmaglobalVisit us at https://ifma.org

Bonds may no longer provide the shelter investors have expected. Our CIO and Chief U.S. Equity Strategist Mike Wilson talks about the changing relationship between inflation, yields and risk.Read more insights from Morgan Stanley.----- Transcript -----Bonds may no longer provide the shelter investors have exMike Wilson: Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Mike Wilson, Morgan Stanley's CIO and Chief U.S. Equity Strategist. Today on the podcast I'll be discussing the shifting landscape in macro markets.It's Monday, August 24th at 11:30am in New York. So, let's get after it.Over the past few weeks we've seen large moves in rates, oil, gold and crypto. What does it mean for equities? First, investors are still treating these markets as separate stories, when they are all part of the same regime shift that began with COVID. More than six years ago, in the depths of that recession, I argued investors should prepare for the return of inflation. That was a very out of consensus view. At that time, the world was obsessed with deflation, the 10-year Treasury yield was below 1 percent, stocks had been hit hard, and gold was sitting around $1,500 an ounce. But the policy response to COVID – what I called helicopter money – changed the game. It marked the end of the 40-year disinflationary regime and a very different investment environment for investors to navigate. It is also the foundation of our run it hot thesis. In a world where inflation has returned, cycles are likely to be shorter, policy more reactive, and leadership changes more frequent. That is very different from the 1982-to-2020 period. Then falling inflation and falling rates allowed economic cycles to stretch for eight or 10 years. We are now in a world that looks more like the post-World War II era: stronger nominal GDP growth, more persistent inflation, higher economic volatility, and a bond market that is no longer the tailwind it used to be for risk assets. In short, the great secular bull market in bonds ended with COVID. This has huge implications for investors of all stripes. My near term view on rates is also different from the mainstream. A lot of investors are saying rates are rising because of debt and deficits. I am not dismissing those factors. But I think the bigger driver is strong nominal GDP growth, which really is the result of aggressive fiscal policy since the pandemic. We are in an era of fiscal dominance, and in that environment the Treasury and the Fed are forced to find ways to fund deficits without breaking markets. That is how I interpret the Treasury's recent buyback activity. I don't think this is quantitative easing or yield-curve control. The scale of the program is not large enough. Instead, it's just another tool to maintain market functioning and stable financial conditions. So when I look at the large move in precious metals and crypto last week, to me it suggests that markets believe this is just a first step toward larger intervention – if financial conditions tighten further. For equities, this all reinforces the quality rotation we have been recommending. Since the peak rate of change in earnings revisions breadth in June, led by Semiconductors, the market has gone through a significant leadership change. Quality factors have started to outperform after a year of lagging, which is exactly what we would expect as a post-recession recovery matures. High free cash flow, high gross margins, stable sales growth, and low capex-to-sales factors have all been working. Some investors are frustrated that the S&P 500 barely sold off during the historic momentum unwind. But if quality is coming back into favor, that makes perfect sense. The S&P 500 is one of the highest-quality benchmarks in the world. Leadership at the stock level may continue to morph, but index leadership for the S&P is unlikely to fade – and may even get stronger. The near-term risk remains oil. Brent crude prices have moved higher over the past couple of weeks. And rising oil has historically been a much more reliable headwind for equities than falling oil has been a tailwind. Our still constructive equity view does not require crude to collapse. It simply requires crude to stop rising. If oil spikes again because the Strait of Hormuz remains closed, that could pressure input costs, push yields and bond volatility higher, and create another round of market instability. Bottom line, the run it hot regime is alive and well. It supports equities. But it also shortens cycles, increases rotations, and forces investors to be more tactical at times. I currently like large-cap quality stocks, AI adopters, and the S&P 500 over international peers. Hedge the oil risk with energy stocks and keep your head on a swivel as we navigate the next phase of this recovery and bull market. Thanks for tuning in; I hope you found it informative and useful. Let us know what you think by leaving us a review. And if you find Thoughts on the Market worthwhile, tell a friend or colleague to try it out!

Andreas Steno and Mikkel Rosenvold are back to ask whether Friday's stock market rally marks the return of a more bullish macro setup, and how far this move could run. They break down Scott Bessent's latest intervention in bond markets and what it could mean for yields, the U.S. dollar, and global liquidity. Plus, they dig into the intensifying Anthropic vs. OpenAI battle and ask whether markets are getting another dose of “Warsh hopium” after Friday's price action.

I'm having a hard time getting the Cheerwine and the portrait of the personification of existential dread in the same shot with the telephoto lens.Today we're talking about Umurangi Generatoin by ORIGAME DIGITAL! A game about taking photos and choosing how to live.Get Umurangi Generation on Steam or Switch!!! Follow ORIGAME DIGITAL's work on their website!Discussed in the episode:The Cheerwine Official StoreThe Article Where I Talk About Umurangi Generation In Full Detail (Total F*ckin Spoilers Ahead), Part One by Kaile Hultner on No EscapeInterview: Naphtali Faulkner on developing indie smash 'Umurangi Generation' by Jonathan Peltz on inverse5 Years Ago, One Of The Most Brilliant Photography Games Perfectly Captured The Present Moment by Robin Bea on inverseAdditional links:The Umurangi Generation is Asking You To Care by Celia Lewis for Vista Magazine on MediumWhat a video game about a futuristic Tauranga can tell us about our present by Dan Taipua for The Spinoff---Support us on Ko-fi!Visit our website!Follow us on YouTube!Follow the show on Bluesky!Check out The Worst Garbage Online!---Art by Tara CrawfordTheme music by _amaranthineAdditional sounds by BoqehProduced and edited by AJ Fillari---Timecodes:(00:00) - Picklesburgh and Kielbasafest (01:21) - Welcome back to penn.dot (02:17) - What is Unmurangi Generation? (03:50) - This game is About Stuff (05:12) - The photography is fun (15:51) - The way the mechanics aid the story (17:41) - All photography has a bias! (21:35) - The soundtrack!!! The art!!! (24:02) - Spoilers! (25:08) - Speeding through the narrative (30:07) - What the Macro DLC focuses on (39:59) - Big Takeaways (40:26) - Robin's Big Takeaway (43:42) - AJ's Big Takeaway (45:51) - The game is amazing!!!!!! (46:52) - Thanks for listening! ★ Support this podcast ★

Andreas Steno and Mikkel Rosenvold are back to ask whether Friday's stock market rally marks the return of a more bullish macro setup, and how far this move could run. They break down Scott Bessent's latest intervention in bond markets and what it could mean for yields, the U.S. dollar, and global liquidity. Plus, they dig into the intensifying Anthropic vs. OpenAI battle and ask whether markets are getting another dose of “Warsh hopium” after Friday's price action.

Moves by the US Treasury to intervene in the bond market failed to bring down yields meaningfully, and the continuing worsening of the US's fiscal position may explain why. According to Chris Holdsworth, Global Chief Investment Officer, Investec Investment Management, the US's debt-to-GDP ratio is above 100% and seems set to remain above that level, with tax hikes politically unpalatable and little room to cut spending in areas such as defense, healthcare and social security. Investec Focus Radio SA

**Join us on Tuesday to discuss this episode in our online gathering, Macro 'n Chill. August 25, 8pm ET / 5pm PT. Register here: https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/NGxWl6qMTaKXPhR51uHkwAIf public power repeatedly stands behind private finance when it fails, shouldn't that same power be directed toward employment, productive capacity, and human need? So why isn't it?Economist Eric Tymoigne returns to the podcast to examine the rapid growth of private credit and private equity through Hyman Minsky's theory of money manager capitalism. Eric argues that the expansion of payment-in-kind interest, securitization, layered leverage, and dependence on rising asset prices are signs that Ponzi finance is becoming increasingly embedded in private markets, making the financial system more fragile. He warns that efforts to “democratize” these markets by opening them to ordinary savers will broaden the pool of investors available to absorb risks and losses (which should really be borne by the wealthy.)The conversation then moves from financial instability to political economy. Through an MMT lens, Eric explains the enormous potential capacity of a currency-issuing government to contain financial crises, sustain incomes, and direct investment toward public purposes. Again we must ask why it doesn't happen. This raises the deeper question of whose purposes the state serves. Steve and Eric discuss public investment, community banking, the federal job guarantee, the influence of wealth on political decision-making, and the limits of electoral democracy in a capitalist system. Eric Tymoigne is an Associate Professor of Economics at Lewis & Clark College, Portland, Oregon; and Research Associate at the Levy Economics Institute of Bard College. His areas of teaching and research include macroeconomics, money and banking, and monetary economics.Find him on Twitter @tymoignee

It's Macro time!!  What the US just did this week kicks off the new approach to fix what appears to be an unfixable problem.  Let's hope it works, but let's also explain what's going on, and why we are perfectly positioned to make a fantastic profit from it all.   The ByBit Blog - https://nononsenseforex.com/cryptocurrencies/best-crypto-trading-platform/   The ApeX Omni Blog (US/Privacy Friendly) - https://nononsenseforex.com/top-defi-trading-platform-apex-omni/   Blueberry Markets Blog (Top FX Broker) - https://nononsenseforex.com/uncategorized/blueberry-markets-review-my-top-broker-for-2019/   Get a Discount On Any Trading View Package - https://www.tradingview.com/?aff_id=159841   The Old Blog Has Moved to My New Free Substack - https://thecontrarianinvestorblog.substack.com/p/what-to-expect-and-what-not-to?r=16orow   Follow VP on Twitter https://twitter.com/This_Is_VP4X   Check out my Forex trading material too! https://nononsenseforex.com/   The host of this podcast is not a licensed financial advisor, and nothing heard on this podcast should be taken as financial advice.  Do your own research and understand all financial decisions and the results therein are yours and yours alone.  The host is not responsible for the actions of their sponsors and/or affiliates.  Conversely, views expressed on this podcast are that of the host only and may not reflect the views of any companies mentioned. Investing involves risk.  Losses can exceed deposits. We are not taking requests for episode topics at this time.  Thank you for understanding.

WATCH the video on Substack by clicking the play button above or on YouTube (here).STREAM audio only on Apple Podcasts (here), Spotify (here), or your favorite podcast player app.DOWNLOAD a pdf of a moderately edited transcript using the blue Download buttons below.We have another audio only post as we enter the final stretch of summer. Our next episode will most likely be the Saturday following Labor Day. This week we want to share various observations about the energy macro, policy, and corporate strategy—the core topics we focus on with Super-Spiked—that have come up in various events or meetings we've attended or in reaction from many of you to prior episodes. Six points to go through: * Natural gas as a through theme for all aspects of where we are in energy and power * Legacy Auto OEMs seem bad at autonomous mobility * Being in a Peer Group of 1 * Under-appreciated areas of energy * Geopolitical necessity provides clarity of purpose to energy policy * How will any country overcome China's overwhelming manufacturing dominance in numerous areas? Timestamps: 0:00 Introduction 1:19 Natural gas as a through theme for all aspects of where we are in energy and power. 8:27 Legacy Auto OEMs seem bad at autonomous mobility 13:26 Being in a Peer Group of 1 16:01 Under-appreciated areas of energy 22:58 Geopolitical necessity provides clarity of purpose to energy policy 24:28 How will any country overcome China's overwhelming manufacturing dominance in numerous areas? 29:20 On A Personal Note

If an AI Crash Happens, It Will Be 5x Worse Than Dot-Com Bubble PoppingIn this episode of Macro, Micro and Small Cap News, we examine two major macro developments pointing to aggressive financial engineering.First, US national debt crosses $40 trillion, pushing 30-year Treasury yields to near 20-year highs. We break down the US Treasury's bond buyback programme and why funding it with short-term T-bills introduces severe rollover risk into the financial system.Second, we analyze the AI earnings bubble and circular funding structures involving Nvidia, hyperscalers, and neocloud providers like CoreWeave. We explore what happens if commercial AI monetization continues to lag behind massive infrastructure capex.We also cover market movements in Gold and Bitcoin, followed by company research on UK-listed small caps: gaming publisher Everplay (EVPL) following the launch of Hell Let Loose: Vietnam, and SaaS provider Cerillion (CER).Special Summer OfferGet 40% off membership to the Sharepickers Investment Club with our Summer Special discount: Discount Code: POD40 (Capital letters, no spaces) Offer Price: £149 (reduced from £249) Expiry Date: 31st August 2026 How to Claim: Visit Sharepickers.com, scroll down to the checkout section, and enter POD40 in the "Have a Coupon" field. Show Notes Macro Story 1: US National Debt Crosses $40 Trillion Contextualizing $40 trillion: servicing costs exceeding $1 trillion annually and debt reaching roughly 120% of US GDP. Surging 30-year Treasury yields reaching ~5.3% and the impact on borrowing costs. US Treasury bond buyback expansion funded via short-term T-bills and the resulting rollover risk. Macro Story 2: The AI Earnings Bubble & Circular Deals The divergence between massive capex spend on data centers/GPUs and realized end-user software revenues. Hyperscaler cash flow pressures in the race for market dominance. Case study of circular vendor financing structures, accounting useful life vs. debt maturities, and index concentration risks. Market Movements: Commodities & Crypto Spiking bond yields driving Gold's rally. Bitcoin price strength, short liquidations, and US administration commentary regarding digital asset purchases. Small-Cap Stock Research Everplay (EVPL): Early SteamDB concurrent user data and estimated gross unit sales for Hell Let Loose: Vietnam, alongside its importance to H2 2026 weighting. Cerillion (CER): Review of H1 performance, the £42.5m Omantel contract, an expanding back-order book (£56m+), £31m cash position with zero debt, and moving average technicals. About The SharePickers Investment ClubThe SharePickers Investment Club employs a unique, systematic method to uncover small, profitable companies on the London Stock Exchange.Each potential investment undergoes comprehensive analysis and is evaluated against 15 crucial financial metrics. This fact-based, quantitative approach allows us to pinpoint high-potential growth businesses and deliver consistent results, bypassing the hype and focusing strictly on the numbers.Learn more at www.sharepickers.com.

AI's enormous capital requirements are reshaping the way companies tap credit markets. Our Chief Fixed Income Strategist Vishy Tirupattur takes stock of this summer's key financing developments. Read more insights from Morgan Stanley.----- Transcript -----Vishy Tirupattur: Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I am Vishy Tirupattur, Morgan Stanley's Chief Fixed Income Strategist. Today: Why the summer of 2026 is all about AI Financing and the evolution of credit markets. It is Friday August 21st at 2pm in New York. The summer of 2026 may ultimately be remembered not for a new model release or a breakthrough chip, but for developments in AI financing that highlighted how quickly capital markets are adapting to the demands of the AI buildout. The starting point of our analysis remains unchanged: the demand for compute continues to outstrip supply of compute, resulting in upward revisions in AI infrastructure capex expectations as hyperscalers commit additional capital to secure future capacity. Our equity research colleagues now estimate that the total capex for the four largest hyperscalers will rise 57 percent in 2027 versus 2026. These spending plans reflect growing conviction that such investments can generate 25 percent plus returns on invested capital. At the same time, the lag between capex deployment and monetization continues to pressure near-term cash generation, with our analysts' 2027 free cash flow estimates for the four hyperscalers continuing to move lower. To a credit analyst, what this means is that the result is a widening financing gap in 2027. That means AI-related credit issuance will remain substantial and may even need to increase further before cash flows from these investments begin to catch up. Developments in credit spreads this summer have been equally telling. Credit spreads for hyperscalers have widened meaningfully. More notable even than the absolute level of widening is the divergence across financing channels. For example, spread widening was most pronounced in unsecured bonds, where issuance volumes accelerated sharply and investors remained exposed to a broader range of risks tied to the AI investment cycle. By contrast, spread widening in data center ABS and CMBS was much more modest. These structures are backed by operating assets that have already been constructed, powered, and leased, with contractual cash flows largely established. Combined with a more measured pace of issuance, these characteristics helped insulate securitized credit products from the volatility seen in unsecured credit markets. The divergence across credit markets also reflects the differences in issuer incentives and sensitivity to funding costs, which will shape issuance volumes going forward. At the higher end of the quality spectrum, the major hyperscalers, with average ratings of roughly AA, combine substantial financing needs with significant ratings flexibility. Given their ROIC expectations, these issuers are relatively insensitive to modest changes in borrowing costs. Higher funding costs alone are unlikely to materially slow capital raising by the highest-quality participants in the AI ecosystem. The opposite is true further down the quality spectrum. Lower quality hyperscalers and data center developers, including former bitcoin miners and REITs, have less balance-sheet flexibility and lower tolerance for higher funding costs. For these borrowers, wider spreads represent a more meaningful constraint, making funding costs a natural stabilizer of future supply. The next phase of AI financing is also likely to look quite a bit different as incremental capex shifts from data center shells toward compute equipment, particularly servers and chips, as well as energy assets. While some of these assets have already been financed through high-yield bonds and leveraged loans, compute infrastructure is particularly well-suited to asset-level financing, creating a larger role for private capital. The emergence of large-scale component financing is likely to be enabled by the highest-quality issuers flexing their ratings as well as balance-sheet strength. We expect these issuers to increasingly provide backstops, credit support arrangements, and residual value guarantees, helping private capital underwrite ever-larger pools of AI infrastructure assets. As AI scales from a technology cycle into a capital cycle, understanding the nuances of financing is becoming increasingly important. In the next phase of the AI buildout, understanding the flow of capital may prove nearly as important as understanding the flow of innovation itself. AI is no longer just a technology story. It is increasingly a capital markets story as well. Thanks for listening. If you enjoy the podcast, please leave us a review wherever you listen and share Thoughts on the Market with a friend or colleague today.

Book a call: https://remnantfinance.com/calendarEmail us at info@remnantfinance.com or visit https://remnantfinance.com for more informationFOLLOW REMNANT FINANCEYoutube: @RemnantFinance (https://www.youtube.com/@RemnantFinance)Facebook: @remnantfinance (https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61560694316588)Twitter: @remnantfinance (https://x.com/remnantfinance)TikTok: @RemnantFinanceDon't forget to hit LIKE and SUBSCRIBEHans opens this episode with a correction to the original recording, the SECURE 2.0 Act dropped that penalty from 50 percent to 25 percent, and then makes the case that the only incentive that explains the rule at all is that they do not want you leaving it to your children.From there, a macro roundup on the three stories driving the tape right now: the 30-year Treasury clearing above 5.3 percent for the first time since 2007, oil sitting stubbornly in the eighties while the Strategic Petroleum Reserve hits its lowest level since 1982, and the Fed holding its range at 3.5 to 3.75 while the betting markets start pricing a hike rather than a cut. Then a replay of what was, for most of this show's run, its most popular episode. Hans and Brian take apart the conventional financial planning model, starting with the assumption buried underneath all of it: that anyone can predict the future. When you retire, what taxes will be, what inflation does, how long you live, how the market performs. Every one of those has to break your way for the plan to work. Only one has to break against you for it to fall apart.Chapters 00:00 – Opening segment 01:05 – Why part two of the interest rate breakdown is delayed a week 04:55 – Correction: SECURE 2.0 took the RMD penalty from 50 percent to 25 percent 06:45 – The one piece of the tax code Hans cannot steel man 07:00 – How the two gates work: 59 and a half, then 73 08:15 – Reducing the penalty to 10 percent, and why the barrier never really left 10:20 – Tax on the seed versus tax on the harvest 11:55 – Macro roundup: how a Treasury auction actually clears 14:05 – The 30-year breaks 5.3 percent, highest since 2007 14:55 – Heavy federal issuance and the approaching 40 trillion mark 15:50 – AI data center CapEx enters the rate story 16:35 – Three straight down sessions in the S&P 17:00 – Oil, Hormuz, and the lowest SPR level since 1982 20:20 – Why "cooling inflation" is still inflation 22:10 – Replay begins: the airline gig and stop being a passenger 25:50 – What the institutions want, and the four things they are optimizing for 26:40 – Pond money versus river money 27:45 – The blackjack cheat sheet the dealer hands you for free 28:50 – The conventional model in one paragraph 30:50 – Where did 65 come from, and why is it a goal at all 32:25 – The Social Security incentive trap 33:35 – The generation that struck gold on the timeline of history 36:10 – Asset price inflation is not value creation 37:10 – A proposal: let our generation take the hit 40:40 – On spending it all and leaving nothing behind 44:15 – The Waiting List, and what you would actually trade for your children 48:55 – Back to the model: predict the future 50:20 – What will tax rates be in thirty years 53:40 – If taxes double, does your plan survive 53:55 – The family budget slide and what it actually is 59:35 – 1988 prices and the case against linear inflation 1:02:50 – How long will you live, and the barrel of water on the island 1:05:35 – Market performance as a load-bearing assumption 1:06:45 – Closing segmentKey TakeawaysThe conventional plan is a stack of predictions dressed as a strategy. When you retire, what tax brackets look like decades out, what inflation does to the cost of a car or a house, how long you live, and what the market returns over the accumulation window.

MacroVoices Erik Townsend & Patrick Ceresna welcome, Darius Dale. They discuss how fourth-turning dynamics, debt “disease,” and policy manipulation are reshaping bond markets. https://bit.ly/4cSYSJI   ✅Sign up for a FREE 14-day trial at Big Picture Trading: https://secure.bigpicturetrading.com/membership/signup/fOY4YJYX  

In this special Travelpod episode, Flip and Mozi learn the MACRO on all things MICRO! Join them as they discover why even the smallest organisms can play BIG roles on Earth. Want to share your earthling discoveries for a chance to be featured in the next travelpod? Leave Flip and Mozi a message at 1-833-4FLIPMO!Originally aired 1/5/23.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

AI is becoming a matter of national strategy, as countries seek more control over their own technology. Our Heads of U.S. Public Policy Ariana Salvatore and Global Thematic Research Stephen Byrd look at the race for AI sovereignty and its implications for investors.Read more insights from Morgan Stanley.----- Transcript -----Ariana Salvatore: Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Ariana Salvatore, Head of U.S. Public Policy Research at Morgan Stanley. Stephen Byrd: And I'm Stephen Byrd, Head of Global Thematic Research at Morgan Stanley. Ariana Salvatore: Today, we'll be talking about AI sovereignty, what it means, what countries around the world are doing to advance their own goals, and what a more fragmented AI ecosystem could mean for investors.It's Thursday, August 20th at 2pm in New York. Stephen Byrd: And it's 9pm in Helsinki. Ariana Salvatore: As AI becomes more powerful and therefore more important to the global economy, countries are asking a basic question: How much of it do we need to control ourselves? That's at the heart of AI sovereignty, making sure governments around the world can access the computing power, data, energy, and technology they need even as geopolitical tensions may rise. Stephen Byrd: And that seems to fit into a broader trend we've been talking about for some time, a more multipolar world where governments are increasingly willing to intervene in markets around strategically important technologies. Ariana Salvatore: Exactly. We describe this as a potential ‘two worlds dynamic.' The U.S. and China have been gradually de-risking from one another, particularly in advanced technology. We've already seen policy tools, including export controls, tariffs, and incentives for domestic manufacturing. And as AI becomes more strategically important, our expectation is for policy intervention to increase rather than decrease. But what's interesting is that the U.S. and China aren't necessarily pursuing sovereignty in the same way. Stephen Byrd: So, let's unpack that. Can you start with the U.S.? What does the American approach look like? Ariana Salvatore: Yes. We think the U.S. is trying to do two things at once, basically. On one hand, it wants to preserve national security guardrails around some of the most sensitive AI capabilities. But on the other hand, it has an incentive to make sure the American AI tech stack is broadly available to allies and partners. So, there's an inherent tension there between those two objectives. Obviously, if you restrict access too much, you can encourage other countries to develop alternatives,. But if you allow unrestricted access, policymakers may begin to worry about losing control over strategically important technology. So, the way that we chart this is through a middle path. We think the direction of travel looks less like complete technological separation and more like selective access – tighter controls around sensitive capabilities alongside an effort to maintain the global reach of the U.S. AI ecosystem. Stephen Byrd: Whereas China's approach is more focused on building out an indigenous ecosystem. Specifically, we see policymakers in China pursuing greater self-sufficiency across the AI stack, from chips and computing infrastructure to cloud and models. Our China strategists argue that bifurcation could actually increase China's incentive to build a larger China-compatible AI ecosystem abroad, particularly across the Global South and other markets that aren't firmly aligned with the U.S. ecosystem. China's model emphasizes lower-cost models, open weight ecosystems, subsidized compute, cloud partnerships and infrastructure exports. So, the competition could increasingly be about not only which country has the most advanced model, but which ecosystem can achieve the widest adoption. Ariana Salvatore: That's right, and that brings us back to this idea of two worlds. So, Stephen, is the implication here that we're going to be heading toward two completely separate AI systems? Stephen Byrd: Not necessarily, I'd say. You know, the supply chains are still deeply interconnected, so our research does not suggest a sudden decoupling. But we could see greater duplication and less globally fungible infrastructure. Countries may increasingly want compute located domestically or regionally. Sensitive data may need to stay within particular jurisdictions, and companies may need different cloud cybersecurity or distribution arrangements in different markets. And that means the same global level of AI demand could require more physical infrastructure than it would in a completely integrated world. Ariana Salvatore: So, fragmentation, like other themes within multipolarity, are more economically inefficient. But potentially pretty important for the investment cycle. We think sovereign AI can make the system more redundant and more capital-intensive as a result. Our research teams think there are potential beneficiaries from that across semiconductors, data centers, networking, power, cloud, cybersecurity, and infrastructure software. Let's look at data centers specifically. If governments and enterprises increasingly require local hosting and greater control over sensitive data, you will inevitably need more geographically distributed infrastructure. Colocation operators, we think, can benefit because they provide the power, cooling, space, security, and interconnection that can allow customers to keep workloads in specific jurisdictions. So, the fragmentation we're talking about may introduce inefficiency at a system level while simultaneously creating incremental infrastructure demand. Stephen Byrd: And there's another constraint here that we probably shouldn't overlook, which is energy. Compute ultimately needs power. So, access to reliable, affordable electricity becomes part of a country's competitive position in AI, which ties into our politics of energy theme that we outlined in January of this year. But as we've also noted, that creates a political constraint. Our thematic work has highlighted rising concern around the impact of data center growth on power prices and on local infrastructure. This has really shown up in a big way in the U.S. And that can mean more pressure to protect existing rate payers, more emphasis on low-cost power. And greater interest in behind-the-meter or off-grid power solutions that allow data centers to secure electricity without putting the same pressure on the grid. Ariana Salvatore: Which suggests that there's a cost, in fact, to AI sovereignty as well. Stephen Byrd: Absolutely. And if countries want more domestic compute, duplicated infrastructure, localized supply chains, and greater redundancy, the system may become more resilient, but potentially more expensive – and we're certainly seeing signs of it being more expensive. Compute and power are already constrained in many markets. Add to that regulatory requirements, localization, and potential restrictions on technology transfer, and reducing dependence can carry an inflationary cost. So, for investors, I think the question isn't simply whether sovereign AI increases spending. It's also where that spending has to occur, what gets duplicated, and which parts of the stack become strategically indispensable. Ariana Salvatore: So, Steven, to frame this for investors, the way we see this theme unfolding suggests that sovereign AI reinforces rather than undermines the broader AI CapEx cycle. We think competition between the U.S. and China is intensifying. Countries outside those two ecosystems increasingly will want greater national resilience and flexibility. And that combination can support additional spending on compute, data centers, networking, and power for years to come. Lastly, an increasingly important question is who controls and supplies that infrastructure, energy, standards, and supply chains that will allow those models to operate at scale? Stephen Byrd: And that may ultimately be the most important thing to watch. Sovereign AI is another example of geopolitics moving directly into the technology investment cycle and potentially changing not only where AI gets built, but how much infrastructure the world needs to build it. Ariana Salvatore: Steven, we'll leave it there. Thanks so much for joining me. Stephen Byrd: Great to be here, Ariana. Ariana Salvatore: And thanks for listening. If you enjoy the show, please leave us a review wherever you listen and share Thoughts on the Market with a friend or colleague today.

With the Federal Reserve leaning toward a smaller balance sheet and several year-end funding pressures approaching, investors may need to pay closer attention to liquidity and the cost of financing leveraged positions. E.G. Fisher, chief investment officer at Mariner Investment Group, joins Bloomberg Intelligence chief US interest rate strategist Ira Jersey to discuss that and more on this Macro Matters edition of the FICC Focus podcast. Fisher explains why market liquidity remains strong but funding liquidity could become more challenging as bank reserves decline, the Treasury General Account grows and major balance-sheet reporting dates approach. The two discuss whether Treasury lending of TGA balances could ease repo pressures, how Chair Kevin Warsh's preference for a smaller Fed balance sheet may affect funding markets and why recent Treasury buybacks at the long end are only a partial response to rising yields and growing debt. They also examine relative-value opportunities across rates and credit, including increased dispersion, record corporate issuance tied to the AI build-out and how steepening credit curves are creating opportunities for arbitrage investors. The Macro Matters podcast is part of BI's FICC Focus series.

After a historic rally and a sharp correction, South Korea's equity market may be approaching a turning point. Our Chief Korea Equity Strategist, Joon Seok, explains that the next cycle will need stronger foundations and more sectors joining in.Read more insights from Morgan Stanley.----- Transcript -----Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Joon Seok, Morgan Stanley's Chief Korea Equity Strategist.Today: Why Korea's equity market may be moving from a sharp reset toward a broader and more sustainable recovery.It's Tuesday, August 18th, at 2pm in Seoul.South Korea's stock market has delivered the kind of ride that makes even long-term investors check their phones more often than they would like. The KOSPI surged 101 percent in the first half of 2026, then fell more than 38 percent from its peak by July 30th. But the market now appears to be moving toward a more durable recovery.The first reason is valuation. Take the KOSPI's forward price-to-earnings ratio, which compares share prices with expected profits over the next year. It fell below five times, its lowest level since 2004. Our capitulation index also dropped to minus 2.53. This index combines market momentum with the breadth of the sell-off, so it helps show whether fear has become widespread. Readings below minus two have often marked troughing territory outside the major crises.The second reason is that forced selling appears to be easing. Now, we have seen leverage as a double-edged sword as leverage helped fuel the rally, but it also made the decline sharper as investors were forced to cut positions. Assets in leveraged single-stock ETFs have fallen about 70 percent from their June peak, and margin lending has also come down. Now, hedge funds have completed roughly three quarters of a typical risk-reduction cycle. Put simply, the most intense selling may already be behind us.Still, a healthier recovery needs more than a rebound by the tech sector. Tech remains central because AI infrastructure continues to drive demand for advanced memory. Morgan Stanley Research expects global spending by large tech platforms to reach 805 billion U.S. dollars in [20]26 and 1.2 trillion dollars in [20]27. That creates a lot of opportunity – but it also keeps markets sensitive to any change in capital spending, chip pricing or competition.The broader Korean economy offers support. Real GDP growth has exceeded 3 percent for two consecutive quarters, up sharply from 1.1 percent in 2025. Full-year growth is now likely to land in the mid-3 percent range; and generally, Korea's growth is around 2 percent. Importantly, the improvement is spreading beyond exports. Consumption is recovering, tourism has surpassed pre-pandemic levels, and the government is targeting 23 million foreign tourists this year.There are trade-offs. Inflation reached 3.2 percent in June, and the Bank of Korea raised its policy rate to 2.75 percent. A measured hiking cycle could take rates to 3.5 percent by the first quarter of 2027. Higher rates may help financial-sector earnings, but they also raise financing costs for households and businesses.The source of market liquidity is changing as well. Domestic retail investors drove much of the first-half rally, but tighter leverage rules mean foreign investors are likely to determine the next leg higher. Corporate-governance reforms and better capital management could also encourage broader international participation.We continue to see a path toward a KOSPI target of 9,000 by June 2027, with a bull case of 10,500 and a bear case of 5,500. The next phase should be steadier and more balanced. Industrials, financials, healthcare, communications, and consumer staples should also contribute alongside technology.Korea still has room to run. But the stronger signal may be quality – meaning earnings resilience, disciplined capital management and broader participation. The stock market's initial rally was fueled by speed and concentrated leadership. The next phase will require wider and more durable support.Thanks for listening. If you enjoy the show, please leave us a review wherever you listen and share Thoughts on the Market with a friend or colleague today.

From chocolate and sugar prices to energy markets and inflation, El Niño's impacts may soon reach far beyond the weather forecast. Our Latin America Agribusiness Analyst Julia Rizzo maps out where the pressure could emerge first.Read more insights from Morgan Stanley.----- Transcript -----Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Julia Rizzo, Latin America Agribusiness Analyst at Morgan Stanley. Today: how El Niño could move from the Pacific into commodity markets, grocery prices, and investor portfolios. It's Wednesday, August 19th, at 10am in Sao Paulo.You may not follow rainfall patterns in Brazil or cocoa-growing conditions in West Africa. But you immediately notice when chocolate, groceries, or electricity cost more. And you can connect the dots to El Niño -- a warming cycle in the Pacific Ocean that disrupts weather globally. It changes where rain falls and shapes the outlook for crops, power markets, transportation, and inflation. There is now a 95 percent chance of a very strong El Niño in the fourth quarter of 2026. It could end up being among the most powerful events in more than 75 years of recorded history. Timing and location matter greatly. Crop damage often depends on whether heat or heavy rain arrives during a narrow planting, flowering, or harvest window. The most direct effects are likely to appear first in commodities. Sugar is on the list of commodities most exposed to favorable price dynamics from weather conditions. Cocoa also looks tight. Grains are more complicated. Soybeans need evidence of a net South American production loss. Problems in northern Brazil may be offset by stronger crops in Argentina or Brazil south. Corn is even more dependent on timing. The key near-term catalyst remains U.S. weather and crops. What happens next matters well beyond agricultural markets. Food is the main channel through which El Niño reaches the broader economy, and the effect usually appears after a one-year lag. That makes inflation primarily a 2027 story. In Latin America, the largest incremental inflation risks are concentrated in Peru, Brazil, and Colombia, with most of the pressure arriving in 2027. That matters for central banks. Weather shocks can fade. So, policymakers often look through an initial rise in food prices. The greater concern is that higher food costs may begin to influence inflation expectations, wages, rents, or other prices across the economy. Colombia stands out as the clearest case where those second-round effects could complicate monetary policy. India and Indonesia also face meaningful economic exposure. Agriculture accounts for a large share of output and employment in these countries. India is especially sensitive. Agriculture represents about 18 percent of the GDP, 43 to 45 [percent] of jobs, while food makes up roughly 36 percent of the consumer price basket. Record food reserves may provide some protection, though a poor growing season could still weigh on rural incomes and keep food inflation elevated. The economic consequences will vary widely. Higher agricultural prices can support farmer income and benefit some parts of the food and agricultural supply chain. They can also raise costs for households, food producers, and businesses that depend on grains and sugar. Utilities may benefit in markets where hotter or drier conditions lift electricity prices, while heavy rainfall could disrupt transport routes and airports in those exposed regions. Historical asset-price signals are limited, so this is less of a broad macro trade than a detailed assessment of local exposure. Rainfall, crop timing, inventories, and the ability to pass higher costs on to consumers will determine where the pressure lands. El Niño may begin in the Pacific, but its market footprint can travel from cocoa farms in West Africa to a grocery aisle, a power grid, or a central bank meeting. Thanks for listening. If you enjoy the show, please leave us a review and share Thoughts on the Market with a friend or colleague today.

John Haar, back for his first Café appearance since leaving Swan for Blockware, opens on the 55th anniversary of the Nixon Shock. His argument: gold's own physical properties, the time, trust, and armed transport required to settle in it, are what let the 1971 dollar-gold break happen and stick. No one could credibly refuse. Asked whether the US might literally "back" the dollar with Bitcoin, John pushes back on the framing. He doesn't see explicit convertibility returning; more likely a sovereign-wealth-fund-style holding that supports confidence in the currency without any fixed exchange rate. Confiscation history, and 1971 counted as one. Executive Order 6102 in 1933, a little-known 1959 Australian law forcing gold surrender to the Reserve Bank, and a 1966 UK law capping residents at four gold coins. John's read: severing convertibility was itself an indirect seizure, since dollar holders lost access to the metal without a single coin being confiscated. The confiscation trade-off, stated plainly: Bitcoin can vanish in an instant through a mistake; fiat vanishes slowly through inflation. John argues neither risk profile is fully solved, which is why he expects Bitcoin and fiat to coexist for a long time, and why he points listeners toward collaborative multisig self-custody (Vault, Unchained, Casa) over solo cold storage. The debt numbers, from three directions at once. US debt crossed $40 trillion this week; annual interest has passed defense spending and sits behind only Medicare and Social Security. Suze: UK debt interest is running around £109 billion a year, more than the entire education and defence budgets combined, about £3,220 per working person. Roxana adds a year-by-year US/UK comparison back to 2021, the pandemic as the shock that reset the baseline. ⭐ A genuinely sharp MMT critique from John, anchored to a receipt: Larry Summers, a mainstream economist with no sound-money priors, posted in 2022 that 2022's CPI would have peaked near 18% under the old inflation methodology instead of the reported 9%. John's broader point: Modern Monetary Theory's post-2008 "QE doesn't cause inflation" claim was really about QE backfilling a contracting money supply, and MMTers overextended that into a general rule that collapsed against 2022's numbers. Frank Corva's field report from a 2023 screening of the MMT documentary "Finding the Money": a viral clip of establishment economist Jared Bernstein fumbling a question on how money is created was cut by MMT advocates to claim the mainstream doesn't understand money either, while, per Frank, the film's own thesis pushes further left than the Keynesian it mocks. His two go-to informed politicians on this material: Nick Begich (introduced the Bitcoin Act) and Warren Davidson. Frank's number of the day: minimum wage measured in gold. Federal minimum wage has gone from $1.60/hour in July 1971 to today's rate; priced in gold instead of dollars, that 1971 wage would be roughly $198/hour, about $8,000 a week now. Cory joins from Istanbul to argue the dollar remains "the cleanest shirt in the dirty laundry" globally, that gold has again overtaken Treasuries as the top central-bank reserve asset, and that today's AI capex bubble likely resolves in a Bitcoin-negative risk-off phase before capital rotates back in, on a multi-year timeline. ⭐ Mining block: John lays out five reasons Bitcoin's 2021-2025 hashrate growth won't repeat, tied throughout to the AI buildout competing for the same capital, chips, and power contracts: the unrepeatable 2021 mining economics, public miners pivoting to AI/HPC data centers, slowing ASIC development as chipmakers prioritize AI silicon, AI's ability to lock long-duration power contracts miners can't match, and the sheer physical scale needed to double an already-large network. At current ~920 exahash, he estimates a nation-state attack would require roughly 2 million frontier ASICs and $10 billion in capex, still a high bar.

The Iran conflict is doing more to crypto than most people realize. Oil pressure feeds inflation, inflation feeds rate hike odds, and September is now live with Warsh sounding hawkish. Layer on the midterm clock closing the window for CLARITY and a banking lobby working overtime, and you get the macro setup nobody's pricing. We break down how war, the Fed, and Washington are converging on crypto at the same time.~This episode is sponsored by Uphold~Uphold Debit Card ➜ https://bit.ly/UpholdXRPCard00:00 intro00:10 Sponsor: Uphold00:50 New Territory?01:20 Kevin McCarthy midterm outlook02:50 Midterms Odds03:30 Oil reaction04:30 Schiff confused05:00 Jane Street x MSTR05:30 DTCC 24/706:00 Monopoly killer letter06:45 Citi BTC Custody+07:20 Anthony Scaramucci: BTC catalyst is not CLARITY08:45 Mike Novagratz: Trump doesn't want CLARITY to pass10:00 Mike Selig10:45 WLFI Bank11:00 BitGo in trouble11:30 Anthony Scaramucci on WLFI bank12:45 Who would speak out?13:20 Austin Campbell: WLFI becomes public enemy #115:30 JP Morgan $1Trillion#Crypto #Bitcoin #iran ~Macro Headwinds vs Crypto Market

Our analysts Andrew Ruben and Nathan Feather discuss how AI shopping agents could transform how consumers discover, compare and buy products and the implications for eCommerce.Read more insights from Morgan Stanley.----- Transcript -----Andrew Ruben: Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Andrew Ruben, Latin America Retail and E-commerce Analyst at Morgan Stanley.Nathan Feather: And I'm Nathan Feather, U.S. Small and Mid-Cap Internet Analyst at Morgan Stanley.Andrew Ruben: Today, what happens when the shopping cart starts thinking for itself and maybe even for you?It's Monday, August 17th at 10am in New York.As we think about trends that are driving e-commerce, which remains a share gainer within the overall retail landscape, it seems that there's a transformation that's quickly building around agentic e-commerce.So, Nathan, I think it's timely for us to talk today as agentic seems like it could be the next catalyzer of growth and innovation within the e-commerce landscape.Nathan Feather: How much bigger do we think agentic commerce could make the global e-commerce market?Andrew Ruben: Global e-commerce as we see it is a nearly [$]5 trillion market today. That implies 22 percent of retail sales. The way we see over the next five years is a $7 trillion opportunity, with growth accelerating to a 9 percent compounded rate, up from about 7 percent over the past four years. And this is partly on the tailwinds from agentic.What we see here is this broad arc of reducing friction with e-commerce over time.Think about how easy it is now to pick up your phone, search for some inventory, click, and the goods can be here within one, two days, if not same day. That's reduction of friction that we think physical retail can't match, and the improvements of agentic commerce. Having this agent that can help you search, help you discover – that should further the e-commerce opportunity.We think agentic alone could add about 6 percent to the five-year e-commerce addressable market, with about 20 percent of industry volumes having some material agent influence.So, within this opportunity, Nathan, agentic isn't one size. How should investors distinguish between AI influence shopping and fully autonomous purchasing?Nathan Feather: To your point, there's a wide different flavors that we're calling agentic commerce. And it starts really at the top of the funnel with, you know, you could go to your chatbot of choice and say, ‘I want a hiking backpack with a water bottle slot and a place to hold my keys,' right? ‘Show me the best options in a certain price range.'And there you're capturing the top of the funnel, but as you click in, you may bounce out to a retailer and purchase on there. Or it could go even further, and maybe you complete your entire checkout within that specific chatbot.Now, right now what we're seeing is about half of consumers are starting the top of the funnel at least sometimes with a chatbot, but a very small portion are actually completing purchases. And so, as time evolves, we expect that funnel to widen and start to see a little bit more of this fully autonomous purchasing; although for the most part, we think it's really going to remain top of funnel and mid-funnel.Now, adoption does look very different across regions, partially because of different consumer behaviors. Why has AI shopping gained more traction in some markets than in others?Andrew Ruben: I think that's right, and what we see is so far to date, agentic shopping has been led by the U.S. and China. These are the two largest e-commerce markets globally, also among the highest penetration. Some data to support it: We have proprietary Morgan Stanley AlphaWise survey that show about 30 percent of China consumers shopping using AI tools over the past month. And that compares to about 12 percent in Brazil.Now, we do see some barriers in terms of the pace of companies' innovation, but I think this is more a matter of time. The example you give of that shopping journey, that does seem like it should be applicable globally.There is also a second barrier, and that would be trust. We do see that consumers are using AI search, using AI discovery, and as they get more comfortable with agentic, we think the use cases can increase over time. But as we see consumers today, they're comfortable with search, but not many are willing to let AI do the full end-to-end checkout.Ultimately, as we see it, the companies will drive the innovation, but it's consumers who determine uptake.And that raises the question of who owns the customer journey. Do retailers keep control, or do the general AI agents take the lead?Nathan Feather: To be frank, this is one of the major unanswered questions within this market. And, you know, we can speculate, but we're not going to know for a few years. So, let's go through the potential paths here.I think the first goes within the customer journey. Where does the customer want to check out? Who has the best experience as you go through that journey? And early on, it's retailers. They have your purchase history. They have your payment information. They have your shipping.To your point, they're trusted. You know if you're going to shop at one of these large retailers, you're going to get what you want. And if you don't, you're going to be able to get that refunded.And so, we think at least early on, retailers will likely keep control of that purchase journey and actually be able to innovate a lot on site. Launch on-site agents that are able to get you to the inventory they have even faster.But retailers could gain control over time. They can shop across multiple websites. They can price match. And so, it is going to be a question over time which of these ends up taking the lead. And the economics will change as a result of that.And Andrew, what determines whether agentic commerce ends up generating purchases that wouldn't have happened otherwise rather than simply shifting existing sales to a new channel?Andrew Ruben: It's a good point on the economics because let's say an agentic transaction happens on a company's site. You do still have costs, and that relates to the large language model. The conversation query going back and forth, that's going to be more expensive than a traditional keyword search.So, here's where incrementality comes in. If you're a consumer that's having this transaction on the site, we think that gives better targeting, better information, and should ultimately put the product in front of you that you want to buy. And what this translates to is incremental sales, a sale that wouldn't have happened if you only had traditional search or an experience that you couldn't match in the physical channel.So, we do think that if the sale is incremental and those model costs eventually come down, then that's the setup for an agentic sale to be profitable. I'd also mention the advertising business. It's important for e-commerce having suppliers that will pay to be one of the product listings up front.Our view is that if you're searching better, then you should get better discovery, and the value of that top real estate should hold. That should be more important for the supplier with better targeting, and they can pay up for that.But there is the risk on the other side. How real do you think the risk is that external agents divert traffic and advertising dollars away from e-commerce platforms?Nathan Feather: Well, the risk is real, and it's really dependent on the customer journey. You know, if you go to a chatbot today, you're expecting when you type in your query, you're going to get the most accurate result that they can offer. The issue with advertising is people are paying for that top slot. It's not inherently maybe the best product. It's the person who wanted to pay the most to get that top slot.When you go to, you know, a search website, it's not necessarily the expectation, right? You know that the first few results are going to be paid, and then there's going to be organic after that. And so, from a customer side of things, there's going to be a question of whether there's the permission to see advertising within that flow.If there's not, you could see advertising dollars get diverted, and that is a risk. If you look at large e-commerce retailers, especially marketplaces today, a majority or sometimes all of their profits actually come from the on-site advertising that exists. And so, it's something worth watching. Although we note early on, this ended up being less of a risk than people initially expected.Now, zooming out here, we've covered a lot of ground. So, as we think about it broadly, what are the likely factors that separate the winners here? In other words, what are the capabilities that matter most as we move into an agentic world?Andrew Ruben: Right. And to get to those capabilities, I think agentic commerce is going to improve e-commerce as a digital service. But this still surrounds the movement, the sourcing, the pricing of physical goods.So, I believe that the rules of retail and e-commerce should still hold. That's the fundamentals of do you have the broad selection, the right inventory at the right location that can get to the right consumer? Second, the ability and willingness to innovate. That's companies that have their own agents, that have partnerships, that are developing these tools we think will be better positioned.And then third, thinking about some complementary assets. If you're a marketplace platform with logistics, with loyalty, with financial services, this should support the positioning depending on how the customer journey evolves. Each of these factors we think will matter in an agentic world.And then finally, what evidence should investors watch to see whether agentic commerce has moved from experimentation to a durable growth driver?Nathan Feather: There's a couple of different factors we're looking for here, and it's important to note we're looking for leading indicators. Given agentic is still a relatively small portion of purchases, we're trying to find those things that could identify where you're going to hit inflection points. So, a few things I'd call out.The first are company disclosures. What are the actual retailers in this industry saying about experimentation? And are the products that they're testing actually moved into production?Second, looking at consumer surveys and whether people are starting to use these AI tools more at the top of the funnel, we think will filter down more to the bottom of the funnel over time as additional things are launched.And last, how is your own search behavior changing? Are you starting to see you gravitate more towards an AI chatbot as you're going through your shopping journey? Oftentimes, you'll start to see the behavior start to shift, and then the dollars flow over time.Andrew Ruben: That's it. The shopping cart may become smarter and ultimately grow faster. But for investors, the defining question remains the same: Who owns the customer journey? Nathan, thanks for speaking with me today.Nathan Feather: Great to be here with you, Andrew.Andrew Ruben: And thanks for listening. If you enjoy Thoughts on the Market, please leave us a review wherever you listen and share the podcast with a friend or colleague today

Andreas Steno and Mikkel Rosenvold are back on this Macro Monday episode to discuss why the Fed may still be overreading inflation risks; Mikkel digs into why Donald Trump ordered a pullback on military exercises in South Korea, and Andreas lays out the trades he likes right now in the current macro regime.

A poem about a map opens North and South, the first collection of the great twentieth century poet Elizabeth Bishop, and since, maps have been associated with her poetic vision—at once telescoping and binocular—and with the polarities and preoccupations of her work. The map's privileged, sweeping, bird's eye view of the earth is also hand-held, man-made, intimate. Depending on its level of minuteness or obsession, it can contain the tiniest details as well as, let's say, the whole enchilada. And though it purports to be scientific and objective, it is representational and therefore subjective, particular, imaginative, and personal. For several episodes, Wes & Erin will be reading a selection of some of Bishop's most anthologized poems, starting with “The Moose” as expressions of, among other things, her map-like imagination. Upcoming Episodes: Nolan’s adaptation of “The Odyssey”; more Elizabeth Bishop poetry: “First Death in Nova Scotia,” “One Art.” Pre-order Erin’s forthcoming book “Avail” here: http://subtextpodcast.com/avail For bonus content, become a paid subscriber at Patreon or directly on the Apple Podcasts app. Patreon subscribers also get early access to ad-free regular episodes. This podcast is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Visit AirwaveMedia.com to listen and subscribe to other Airwave shows like Good Job, Brain and Big Picture Science. Email advertising@airwavemedia.com to enquire about advertising on the podcast. Follow: Twitter | Facebook | Website Transcript 0:11 Erin: A poem about a map opens north and south, the first collection of the great 20th century poet Elizabeth Bishop. And since maps have been associated with her poetic vision, at once telescoping and binocular, and with the polarities and preoccupations of her work. The map's privileged, sweeping, bird's eye view of the earth is also handheld, man made intimate. Depending on its level of minuteness or obsession, it can contain the tiniest details as well as, let's say, the whole enchilada. And though it purports to be scientific and objective, it is representational and therefore subjective, particular, imaginative and personal. Over the next few episodes, we'll be reading a selection of some of Bishop's most anthologized poems, starting with the moose as expressions of, among other things, her map, like imagination. This is Erin O'Luanaigh. And this is Wes Alwan, and you're listening to Subtext. Wes, have you ever seen a moose in the wild? 1:12 Wes: I have not, but I have seen Instagram videos of them and people getting too close, and I've heard that they actually are quite dangerous. 1:23 Erin: Oh, perfectly harmless. 1:24 Wes: As cute as they look. So not safe as houses. Which is a very surprising line, unless you think that houses maybe aren't as safe as they seem or ought to be. But that's something we'll talk about later. How about you? 1:38 Erin: I have not. And I actually, it's become a running joke among certain friends of mine that I haven't seen a moose because I long to see a moose in the wild. This is my dearest wish. 1:52 Wes: Is that the first time anyone said that in history? I long to see. 1:56 Erin: I don't know. 1:57 Wes: It's a good first line for a poem, actually. Why do you long. Long to see a moose in the wild? 2:03 Erin: Really? Maybe because of the poem. I don't know. I just really want to, but I. Maybe this will become significant without getting too personal or maybe with getting too personal. With apologies to the listeners. Ten years ago now, when my grandfather passed that summer, my grandmother wanted to go up to Maine and revisit certain places that she had been with him. And we ended up going to Acadia. And I was so excited to see. Am just. I got it into my head that I had to go to Acadia and see a moose. And I even bought a sweatshirt. I'm not wearing it right now. I looked down to see if I was wearing it. It's the same size and shape as this one. This is a Yankees, 1996 World Series sweatshirt. 2:42 Wes: It's not a Rocky and Bullwinkle sweatshirt, is it? 2:45 Erin: No, no, no. It's an acadia and it has a. It has a mousse on it. And so I bought it the first day that I was there and I was like, this is my sweatshirt and it has a moose on it. And I'm gonna. I'm gonna see a moose. And I did not see a moose. And then I. I bought a moose sweatshirt in, I think Grand Teton, and I was like, I'm gonna see a moose. And I did not see a moose. And then I lived obviously many years in Utah, and things would happen. Everybody knew I wanted to see a moose. And I would go to these trails where you could see moose. And I would like be going up a trail and someone would be coming down saying, there are moose up there. We just saw a moose. You just saw baby moose. I'd get all upsided and I would. I would run up and it was gone and people would taunt me. 3:32 Wes: So you don't want to see like a magic white heart or something like that? 3:38 Erin: No, no, I just want to see him. Even the garden variety moose? No, no. Just a humble moose will hide itself from me when. When it knows that I am after it. 3:49 Wes: Because they are a goofy, right? Are they majestic? Are they goofy looking? Are they both? 3:55 Erin: I think they're both. And I think that kind of qual quality is really well captured in the poem. No, I mean that quality of if not being then looking safe as houses or being a gargantuan size, and yet having. I know this is a female moose, which I believe is called a cow, as opposed to a bull. Right. But the bulls, even their horns have that hand like quality to them. You know, it looks kind of like an outstretched hand. 4:22 Wes: Interesting. 4:24 Erin: Yeah. They're not majestic. 4:25 Wes: Yeah, I think that's important to the poem. It's not some obviously majestic creature, although it is large and there is majesty in it in the poem, but it's not the typical majesty that you can just get from, oh, look at this beautiful animal. 4:41 Erin: Yeah. And this is kind of why I brought up my grandfather. There was some connection for me as I think there is something quite personal going on with the moose at the end, other than the shared experience of everybody in the bus, all of that. Like there's something bigger than us, more than us, and yet familiar in a way. And it's magical in a sense, because to see it is kind of a rare thing. Yet it also comes out of the landscape that she's that she's grown up in and that she's part of. I think there's a. Yeah. A lot of interesting dualities going on. 5:17 Wes: Okay. So maybe you can read the whole thing and then you could give a little bit. Or we could give a little bit of the biographical background because this is a bus trip she actually took. Right. 5:26 Erin: Yeah. 5:27 Wes: The significance of Nova Scotia, which is where she's departing from in the poem and all of that stuff. But. Yeah. Do you want to start by reading? 5:35 Erin: Sure. The moose from narrow provinces of fish and bread and tea, home of the long tides, where the bay leaves the sea twice a day and takes the herrings long rides where if the river enters or retreats in a wall of brown foam depends on if it meets the bay. Coming in the bay, not at home, where silted red sometimes the sun sets facing a red sea and others veins the flats. Lavender rich mud and burning rivulets. On red gravelly roads, down rows of sugar maples, past clapboard farmhouses and neat clapboard churches, bleached ridged as clam shells, past twin silver birches through late afternoon a bus journeys west, the windshield flashing pink, pink glancing off of metal, brushing the dented flank of blue beat up enamel, down hollows, uprises and waits patient, while a lone traveler gives kisses and embraces to seven relatives and the collie supervises goodbye to the elms, to the farm, to the dog. The bus starts. The light grows richer. The fog shifting, salty, thin, comes closing in. Its cold round crystals form and slide and settle in the white hen's feathers in gray glazed cabbages on the cabbage roses and lupins like apostles. The sweet peas cling to their wet white string on the whitewashed fences. Bumblebees creep inside the foxgloves and evening commences. One stop at Bass river, then the economies, lower middle, upper five islands. Five houses where a woman shakes a tablecloth out after supper. A pale flickering gone the Tantramar marshes and the smell of salt hay. An iron bridge trembles and a loose plank rattles but doesn't give way. On the left a red light swims through the dark. A ship's port lantern. Two rubber boots show illuminated, solemn. A dog gives one bark. A woman climbs in with two market bags. Brisk, freckled, elderly. A grand night. Yes, sir. All the way to Boston. She regards us amicably. Moonlight as we enter the New Brunswick woods. Hairy, scratchy, splintery moonlight and mist caught in them like lamb's wool. On bushes in a pasture the passengers lie back, snores some long sighs. A dreamy divagation begins in the night, a gentle auditory slow hallucination in the creakings and noises, an old conversation not concerning us but recognizable somewhere back in the bus, grandparents, voices uninterruptedly talking in eternity, names being mentioned. Things cleared up finally. What he said, what she said, who got pensioned. Deaths, deaths and sicknesses. The year he remarried, the year something happened, she died in childbirth. That was the son lost when the schooner foundered. He took to drink. Yes, she went to the bad when Amos began to pray, even in the store and finally the family had to put him away. Yes, that peculiar affirmative. Yes, a sharp indrawn breath, half grown, half acceptance. That means life's like that, we know it. Also death talking the way they talked in the old featherbed, peacefully on and on, dim lamplight in the hall, down in the kitchen, the dog tucked in her shawl. Now it's all right now, even to fall asleep, just as on all those nights. Suddenly the bus driver stops with a jolt, turns off his lights. A moose has come out of the impenetrable wood and stands there, looms rather in the middle of the road. It approaches, it sniffs at the bus's hot hood, towering antlerless, high as a church, homely as a house or safe as houses, a man's voice assures us, perfectly harmless. Some of the passengers exclaim in whispers, childishly, softly, sure are big creatures. It's awful plain. Look, it's a she. Taking her time. She looks the bus over, grand, otherworldly. Why. Why do we feel. We all feel the sweet sensation of joy? Curious creatures, says our quiet driver, rolling his Rs. Look at that, would you? Then he shifts gears for a moment longer by craning backward. The moose can be seen on the moonlit McAdam. Then there's a dim smell of moose, an acrid smell of gasoline. 11:05 Wes: Thank you. Very nice. It's really great to hear it spoken out loud. Spoken is the wrong word. It's the word read, performed. Do you want to say anything about the form of the poem before I ask you about some of the autobiographical background? 11:22 Erin: Yeah. Short lines, six line stanzas, 20, I believe. 28 stanzas in all. Irregularly rhymed, should we say? Kind of like a lot of bishop, you know, we get A, B, C. Then sometimes not rhymed where you might expect. So the rhymes peek their heads out and then. And then recede. Chatty a little bit in places, lots of repetitions of words. But that. That's something we could talk about More. But, yeah, kind of. Kind of mysterious form. One of the best things I've ever heard or read, I guess, about Bishop was by Michael Hoffman, who wrote quite a bit about her. And he said that it seems as though every time Bishop is writing, whether in form or in a kind of nonce form that she's creating, that she seems to be just inventing every form, like from scratch. You know, there's no blueprint. She doesn't have a familiar style in which she writes or particular kind of verse form that she seems to gravitate to. And when she writes, you know, a sistina or a villanelle or a sonnet or something like that, it seems like she's almost inventing the form as she goes along. And in this instance, there's a real. I keep wanting to say homemade after Crusoe in England. But, yeah, I think that's maybe what he was trying to get at, that homemade quality, that sort of bespoke kind of quality. And in the places where the rhyme goes in and out, I think that's really exemplified. 12:53 Wes: Well, it better be bespoke. She took forever to write it. 12:55 Erin: Yeah, that's right. She started this in, I think, 1946. 13:01 Wes: And then she finished it when this 13:04 Erin: was published in Geography 3. So she finished it in the 70s. 13:07 Wes: Okay. 13:08 Erin: Geography 3 came out in 1977. And this must have been published before then, individually, perhaps in the New Yorker, I think. Oh, geography three is 76. I would say maybe 72 is the date that comes to mind. Don't quote me on that. 13:24 Wes: Do we know why it took her so long? Obviously, she put it down for a couple days here and there. 13:29 Erin: It was the July 15th issue, 1972. So close to the day that we're recording. Why did it take her so long? She just worked on things forever and ever and ever. You see it, if you read. I highly recommend to listeners that they Get Words in Air. A very, very thick book of all the letters between Bishop and her friend Robert Lowell. You see her bringing up things or even mentioning in a description that she's writing to Lowell in a letter, a line that will later show up in a poem. Yeah. Low rate of productivity is great to. 14:08 Wes: You know, I can relate to that. 14:11 Erin: I take it as my model, honestly. Like, you know, live. Live Large and die with a slim Collected is kind of a. 14:19 Wes: Kind of a great Monroe Doctrine. But call it. What's another name? Bishpro. 14:28 Erin: That's right. 14:29 Wes: Is it right that she was forced to complete it because she agreed to read it this is something for deadlines. Right. At Harvard's Phi Beta Kappa ceremony. 14:38 Erin: I didn't know that. I know she read it at that ceremony, but I didn't know that that's what. The impetus for completing it. But that doesn't surprise me. 14:45 Wes: Yeah. So deadlines help every once in a while. 14:47 Erin: Absolutely, absolutely. 14:49 Wes: And then biographically. Right. This is based on a trip that she actually took, and she. She'd been to visit relatives in Nova Scotia and then came back on this bus trip. And the. There really was a moose. There really was a collie. Seven relatives for the rest of it. Yeah, yeah. Seven else. 15:11 Erin: Yeah, yeah. The specificity and all of it's. You know, there is a kind of like a photo realism, not just in the style, but in the. You know, we could sort of be certain that these things happened the way that she is recording them somehow, and yet she's spinning it into something more than just reportage. 15:30 Wes: So she was raised partly by her grandparents in Great Village, Nova Scotia. Right. Her. Her father had died in infancy and her mother was institutionalized. 15:41 Erin: That's right, yeah. 15:41 Wes: She aged at. When she was 5. 15:43 Erin: That's right. 15:44 Wes: So it's important just because. Yeah. The bus is leaving Nova Scotia, but go. Go ahead. 15:48 Erin: Yeah, it is important. She was born in 1911 in Worcester, Massachusetts, and she's buried there. I've seen her grave up there. It has a line or two lines from the bite on her tombstone. All the untidy activity continues. Awful but cheerful. Yeah. So she was born in 1911. Her father died, I think, of Bright's disease when she was 8 months old. And then her mother was institutionalized when she was 5, and she never saw her again. She didn't die until the 30s, I think, while Bishop was at Vassar. 16:23 Wes: Do we know what she was institutionalized for? Mental illness in general? 16:28 Erin: Yes. I don't know exactly what. In a short story of Bishop's, she describes as her. A scream coming from her mother. And whatever was wrong was exacerbated by her husband's death. And so then Elizabeth was left to be raised by her grandparents in Nova Scotia who were quite poor. And I guess she was kind of running around barefoot on the farm and stuff like that. And her father's family were very wealthy, and so when they came up to visit Elizabeth, they were, I guess, horrified by the fact that she was just like, you know, running around, hanging out with farm animals. And they took her to. Back with him to Worcester, and she was very unhappy there. Very ill child. She had asthma and eczema. And really, like, I think almost died of both at one time or other, very unhappy. And then eventually she moved to an aunt's house in, I want to say, in Revere, Massachusetts, and she was a little happier there. And then she went to Vassar, and I've been to the Vassar campus to see various buildings associated with Bishop and also to see. They did a really fabulous exhibition of her postcards at the Vassar Library a couple of years ago, which I really loved, seeing her hand and her little. In jokes and asides and really amazing to see. Anyway, at Vassar, the librarian there set up a meeting between Bishop and Marianne Moore, who became a mentor to her. They were very close. And then also over the course of her life, she was very close with and had an important friendship with Lowell. Hence the enormous book of letters. I have it here. It's so heavy I could barely pick it up. But this is a great book. It's kind of like an epistolary novel. Yeah. And she was. I think it's important to say, too, that she was a lesbian who had a very long relationship with a Brazilian architect named Lota de Mecedo Soares, who was her partner in Brazil for 15 years. She lived down there, known for travel. A lot of her collections, whether it's Geography three, which is the most obvious one, or north and south, have. There are a lot of Brazilian pumps. There are a lot of geographical poems. The first poem in her first collection, north and south, was the Map, which is often read as a kind of ars poetica. She's known for these types of, you know, sweeping landscapes that the moose begins with, and an interest in landscape and in this kind of bird's eye view. But then also you get these telescoping details, like a cinematic close up interspersed. Much is made of that in Bishop, of that kind of vision of hers, and specifically of, I don't know, the idea that she creates these. These beautiful miniatures, which is true, but maybe sometimes can be a little. I mean, she's revered, as she should be, and she's one of the most popular poets and she also has a great ear and she has so many other great things going on. So I don't want to exclusively focus on that kind of visual element, though it's there and it's very rich. 19:43 Wes: So from narrow provinces of fish and bread and tea. That's a very good opener. Why are they narrow provinces? And what is the. What are the fish and bread and tea doing? Fish and bread sounds vaguely like it could be a biblical reference, but maybe it's not. But you add tea. Right. There's something mundane here and perhaps restricted, provincial. And that's what she's going to be departing from. I mean, well, begins with the tides, but. 20:12 Erin: Yeah, right. Yeah, that's right. Narrow in a few kinds of ways. Because there's a strange. Because of the Bay of Fundy, there's almost that like U shaped corridor of land around it. So Nova Scotia is kind of narrow. And then up into. Then there's the narrow isthmus. I don't know, I don't know if I'm using that word correctly. Up into New Brunswick. Yeah, so there's something maybe a little, I don't want to say spiritually narrow, maybe somewhat limited or like practical. Practical and, you know, just the necessities and a place we learn that that is. That maybe has to be stalwart in response to the vagaries of the water around it. The Bay of Fundy, I was reading online, the tide, over the course of just one tide, can rise and fall 50ft because the bay is like a giant funnel. When it goes out, it just leaves this vast, open, muddy plain basically behind it. 21:16 Wes: She portrays this very beautifully. We get the image of the tide retreating and then the flats that are being illuminated by the setting sun as burning rivulets. And then there's almost a transition into the bus ride when she says on red gravelly roads, eventually the subject of that is going to be the bus. Although in the beginning, before we get to the bus, it looks like the rivulets have almost become roads. So you almost get the sense like the tides come in and it's going to go further inward, it's going to go all the way to Boston, but it's going to become the inhabitants of the bus who are much like the herrings. Right. In the first stanza. The herrings on the tides take herrings on long rides. So it's almost as if as the tide comes in, she is caught in the tide and brought along with it towards her destination. 22:08 Erin: That's right, yeah. And the bay itself, the water itself is also like a traveler, you know, you might go to visit it and find it's not at home, it's gone out for on a trip or something. So there's also that connection as well. Whereas the roads are part of this more solid and dependable and the water being fickle and not always depended on to be there. 22:31 Wes: Well, I was going to say there's something very poignant about the way she describes the tides and whether they're in or out. And I can't put my finger on it exactly. It's almost. It's this idea of. Right. Where if the river enters or retreats in a wall of brown foam depends on if it meets the bay. Coming in the bay, not at home. If the tide is in or coming in the river clashes with it in a wall of brown foam. Is that the idea now? And what's the image there? Is it always a wall of brown foam? Well, either way, I just. Something about this idea of. It depends on whether the bay is at home or something like that. It's a poignant image. 23:12 Erin: It is. It's that sense of just. Of disappointment or just missing someone, like a missed opportunity. Seems kind of surprisingly emotionally resonant, considering that she's talking about a tide. 23:25 Wes: And we. You know, it introduces the idea of home and. Which I think will be significant. And later on we'll talk about whether the moose is safe as houses and the reflections of the elderly and all that stuff. But. 23:40 Erin: And boundaries, too, right. You have very slippery boundary between the bay and the. And the sea, between the rivers and the bay that feeds them. And I think that boundary very much plays into the idea of home. And you could say that the bus seems to be a part of that too. Right. Like the bus becomes the home. So there's a little bit of the slippery idea of this transposition of home life into the bus, or the people on the bus all becoming the. We like a family within it. The way that it can literally cross national boundaries. It's going to Boston across the border. 24:18 Wes: Yeah. And then they'll be observing provincial life, I guess, from within the bus. And. And, you know, a woman shaking out an apron, for instance, or home life. But, yeah, I had the same thought to you. The bus. The interior of the bus becomes its own kind of mobile home, I guess. I guess the wall brown foam part. There's that push and pull, or it's a matter of who's doing the pushing. Right. In one case, the brown foam. The wall of brown foam is caused as. As the river pushes on the retreating tide. And the other case, it's the tide pushing back against the river as it comes in. But in either case, there's a clash there. 24:58 Erin: Then there are places, though, where there's blurring of boundaries. Like one of my favorite lines in the whole poem, the idea of the churches as ridged as clamshells. She always takes that. This is much remarked upon among scholars of Bishop. Where you get the thing that's. That's really big, suddenly reduced in size to the handheld, but coming out of the same idiom. You know, both the clamshell and this clapboard church are in a way equally native to Nova Scotia. The brilliance of connecting those two things and fishing being an industry in the area, you know, sort of springing out of the fishing industry. 25:42 Wes: Yeah. And shells are what's left as the tide retreats. Right. As it's as if the houses are just the natural residue of a retreating tide. 25:52 Erin: That's great. 25:52 Wes: From the beginning of the poem, there's a sense of momentum, and almost like you, at least in my case, I felt like I'm on a camera moving over the landscape, and it starts with the tide, and then it moves to the burning rivulets. Right. So now we're hovering over. I don't know what you would call it, a. A tidal plane. Anyway, she calls it the flats. Right. So all the silt, and we're moving along there, and then suddenly we're on a gravelly road. So the sun takes over from the sea. The redness of the sun. And then the bus takes over from the sun. But that's the momentum of the poem is from sea to sun to bus. 26:37 Erin: Yeah. The bus flashes pink. We get lots of pairs of the same word, creating a kind of chime with each other. So we get the windshield flashing pink. Pink glancing off of metal. And we wonder, I suppose, because part of the reason why the roads are red is because of the clay content. Right. Of the road itself. So we get that combination of, like, something red in the road or in the composition of the soil and rock of the area. 27:07 Wes: Laterite, I think, which I only know because of Graham Green, who I've been reading. Oh, and what heart of the matter. He's talking about laterite houses, like. So from the red clay, you can make, you know, homes from as well, and common in Sierra Leone. So he used the word like a hundred times before he finally looked it up. All right. There must be something that's going to not know what he's talking about. I'm like, oh, okay, now I get it. Yeah. 27:41 Erin: So that's the mineral, the. 27:44 Wes: It's reddish. Yeah. Reddish clay type of soil, topsoil or something like that. I should know more about this because I used to write about this, too, when I was writing about transportation and engineering. 27:56 Erin: Right. 27:57 Wes: It's important what kind of soil you're building on. But anyway, I remember nothing about that. But, yeah. So it could be the right word. Who knows? But. But, yeah. So you're getting at the. Yeah. The way the redness of the sun is interacting with the. 28:12 Erin: Yes, it's coming. 28:13 Wes: The redness of the soil. 28:14 Erin: Yeah. And that kind of redness coming from below and above to glint off of the bus. The windshield is flashing pink from the sun and the metal is flashing pink from the road. They're both brushing the dented flank of the blue beat up enamel from one direction or the other, it seems. Yeah. Sort of tunnel of red in which the. In which the bus is traveling. 28:41 Wes: Such a vivid image that she gives us. It made me think, you know, sometimes it's almost better than film. It's more vibrant or more. Don't know how to say it, but I was thinking about this because in some of the philosophy podcasts we do, there are philosophers who deny that we have imagery in our head. Exactly. Or we can never. Which seems true. Right. We can't imagine anything with the vividness that we would have if we actually saw it. But it makes me think when I read a poem like this, but also. And also reading some of the novels I've been reading. Well, there's a special kind of vividness to figurative language that perception can't capture. In some ways it's more. More vivid, definitely. 29:26 Erin: I think the sonic quality of the word, the repeated. Right. It's on the one hand a repeated image, but then it also creates that kind of just the soundscape, makes them feel somehow more synesthetic to say, but somehow more picturable or more tangible or more. I don't know, the pink glancing off metal, the dented flank beat up enamel. You know, there's just. It's like. I think that's contributing to it, to the vividness of the image. And yeah, you talked about momentum, too. I mean, this entire. This whole first sentence is six stanzas long. It ends with. And Akali supervises. So there's also that kind of. Yeah. Locomotive propulsion of the camera work, so to speak, Zooming in and then following the road into the bus. And then the bus arrives to sort of catch again, quite cinematically the scene that's actually happening or the place where the eye, if there is an eye in the poem, actually is the lone traveler embracing these relatives with the collie watching on. So there's a sense in which the I eye of the poem doesn't actually catch up with the speaker until stanza six and the end of this first sentence until we get goodbye to the elms, to the farm, to the dogs. So there's kind of lamination at that moment of the I eye and the capital I. 30:49 Wes: We seem to be gradually getting more of a point of view. Right. It's very omniscient in the beginning, hovering over the landscape. And I think gradually we're going to be getting a her point of view in the bus and then a we. But also just to note, this is one. I think this is the first of three pauses. Right. There's gonna. It's gonna pause here, the bus. The momentum is gonna stop as the bus lets on the lone traveler, which I presume is her. Right. Her saying goodbye. And then there'll be a pause when the amicable freckled woman gets on. She's there because we need everything to be in threes. And then we. Then we're gonna pause for the moose in the very end. I didn't miss anything. Right. There's not other places where we stop? 31:32 Erin: No. I mean, there are, of course, stanzas that end some more definitively than others and stopped with a period. There's a stop at Bass River. Right. So there is a little bit of that kind of start. Stop syntactically. But I think you're right that those are the stops where there's content. 31:49 Wes: Content goes. 31:50 Erin: Yes. And where there's a very particular. Yeah, the content of the bus, except for the moose obviously doesn't get on the bus. But there's a stop that's motivated, let's say, rather than just being described as various stops along the way where we don't know who got on and who got off or whatever. Certainly there's also a movement toward that more personal experience of the speaker. But then there are also things that the speaker couldn't possibly know or you know, because once she's said goodbye to everyone and gets on the bus, then we also get the sort of nature show close ups. The crystals of fog, the lupins like apostles, the sweet peasants clinging. One of my favorite parts, clinging to their wet white string on the whitewashed fences. Again, we get two uses of white right next to each other. Bumblebees creeping in the foxgloves. All things you really can't see from certainly from a moving bus. 32:43 Wes: Yeah, the point of view gets focused very, very gradually, maybe through the whole palm. Maybe it's not fully focused until the very end, but. Yeah. So you're pointing out something important which is at the sort of omniscient point of view is still here in these very. What do you call it when you take a close up with your phone? Macro, ironically. Yeah. These very close up pictures of flora and fauna and very Beautiful. 33:12 Erin: Yeah. They compound and then they get more and more loaded and mysterious. And just when we're about to maybe go over the edge, we get recalled back a little bit. That's at least how I'm reading, for instance, stanza 12, about the ship's port lantern and the boot and the bark of the dog. And then suddenly a woman climbs on the bus. And so we're sort of stopped from going off into some sort of train of thought that you could follow there down a rabbit hole. But I love that stanza on red light swimming through the dark. It reminds me of the last stanza of disillusionment, of 10 o'. Clock. Do you know the old sailor, drunk and asleep in his boots, catches tigers in red weather? I think that's how it goes, the Stevens bomb, because we get the boots and the red light in the ship, so they're probably. No. No real connection there. 34:07 Wes: So all of these little intricate descriptions that she's giving, right. It begins with the light growing richer, which I take it mean, means we're approaching dusk and evening, or we're in dusk and it's evening is approaching and a kind of mini winter, Right. Something. It's a diurnal cycle, but there's a bit of a parallel to something seasonal. Right. So we get crystals forming and the images like sweet peas clinging and the bumblebees inside foxgloves. As evening commences, it's almost like. I don't know if this is true, but it's almost as if we're getting the response of the animals and flora and fauna to the commencement of evening. That's our first indication of it. So I was surprised to see, okay, it's still light out enough for us to see a woman shaking a tablecloth out after supper. And that is beautifully described as a pale flickering. Right. Almost as if that's something like the light reflecting off the enamel bus, or not pink anymore, but just a flickering of pale light and then gone, I suppose. Does that mean that we're now without light? Is that sort of the way nighttime is ushered in by the end of the next stanza? And it's in the next stanza that we see a red light in the dark. Now we have a ship in the dark. So it's almost as if. Yeah, the shaking of the tablecloth is like a magician. Abracadabra. Now it's nighttime, Right? 35:39 Erin: Yeah. I love that. Yeah. You're making me realize how many connections there are to Keats in this poem. Right. There's something Keatsian about it, very. To Autumn, you get the sweet peas clinging on the fence. You get that image of fecundity things on top of other things. You know, the mossed cottage trees and the late flowers for the bees. And then the shaking out of the tablecloth is like the hair lifted by the winnowing wind. Right. Because there's. There's wind, there are flowers and bees. And then there's also, of course, redness and that image of, you know, like the evening. Autumn. Evening redness. And maybe this is. Yeah. Rows of sugar maples. Those could be red as well. If we're in an autumnal landscape, can't be too late because everything is, you know, it's got to be like August, maybe because we have this. Or. No, I guess maybe not. Gray glazed cabbages. I don't know enough about cabbages to know at what point in their development. 36:40 Wes: Yeah. Whatever season it is. I just think that the evening is almost like a mini winter. It gets colder and we see the. 36:46 Erin: Definitely. 36:47 Wes: We see the effects of it. But, yeah, maybe autumn is probably the logical season for. 36:53 Erin: Right. Yeah. And that point. Or that point in the transition from summer to autumn where, I mean, even on a summer night in Nova Scotia, the evening temperature is quite autumnal regardless. And so when the woman climbs on with the market bags, we get. 37:09 Wes: Shall we take a. Shall we? 37:12 Erin: Oh, yes. 37:13 Wes: Let's let the freckled amicable woman on in part two. 37:17 Erin: She'll have to wait. 37:18 Wes: Let's not let her on the bus yet. 37:20 Erin: You have to wait for everyone else to get off before you can get on. It's one of the cardinal rules of public transportation. Okay, we will continue in part two. Thank you. 37:29 Wes: Thank you.

Miftah Ismail is a Pakistani political economist who served as the Federal Minister of Finance from April 2022 to September 2022.The Pakistan Experience is an independently produced podcast looking to tell stories about Pakistan through conversations. Please consider supporting us on Patreon:https://www.patreon.com/thepakistanexperienceTo support the channel:Jazzcash/Easypaisa - 0325 -2982912Patreon.com/thepakistanexperienceAnd Please stay in touch:https://twitter.com/ThePakistanExp1https://www.facebook.com/thepakistanexperiencehttps://instagram.com/thepakistanexpeperienceThe podcast is hosted by comedian and writer, Shehzad Ghias Shaikh. Shehzad is a Fulbright scholar with a Masters in Theatre from Brooklyn College. He is also one of the foremost Stand-up comedians in Pakistan and frequently writes for numerous publications. Instagram.com/shehzadghiasshaikhFacebook.com/Shehzadghias/Twitter.com/shehzad89Join this channel to get access to perks:https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC44l9XMwecN5nSgIF2Dvivg/joinChapters:0:00 Introduction1:20 Macro-economic stability and anti-poor budget4:26 Why should the GDP growth number matter to the people8:30 Inflation and reimagining the economy16:36 NFC Award36:01 Local Governments and the Establishment41:21 PSDP and the Defense budget50:09 System hee masla hay54:53 Karachi1:01:06 Ethnic Politics and Elite Capture1:13:30 Are Shahbaz Sharif's days numbered?1:22:42 Audience Questions

Our Global Head of Fixed Income Research Andrew Sheets examines why investors might be overlooking the stability and performance of UK assets, despite persistent negative sentiment.Read more insights from Morgan Stanley.----- Transcript -----Andrew Sheets: Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Andrew Sheets, Global Head of Fixed Income Research at Morgan Stanley. Today, why the UK may need better PR. It's Friday, August 14th at 2pm in London. The last decade has been rough for the United Kingdom. Brexit was a true economic earthquake, and the subsequent weakening of economic ties to mainland Europe, the UK's largest trading partner, made economic activity weaker and more complicated.Then COVID hit the economy hard. So did spiking energy prices when Russia invaded Ukraine. Political volatility has been high, with seven prime ministers in the last 10 years. And at present, UK growth is weak, inflation is too high, and debt to GDP is rising. Moreover, in a post-COVID world that's increasingly driven by the profit and power of technology, including AI, the UK market seems almost stuck in another era. Of the 10 largest companies in the U.S. stock market, eight are in technology. In the UK, none of the 20 largest companies are in tech. Safe to say, being downbeat on the prospects for the UK is one of the most consensus views that I encounter. But it can also be deceiving. Simple stories in the market rarely are.Let's start with the argument that UK markets are boring, stagnant, and being left behind by their lack of technology. It's just not true. Through early August, the S&P 500 has returned 85 percent over the prior five years. The UK market? It's returned 82 percent. And over the last twelve months, the performance of the UK and U.S. markets are also similar. In short, don't judge a book by its cover. The UK's currency, meanwhile, shows no sign of global investors shunning the island. Over the last 10 years, the UK pound has actually gained value against the U.S. dollar. Notable given how strong the performance of the U.S. economy and markets have been over that time. And that's also pretty impressive relative to its peers. Over this same timeframe, the value of the Japanese yen, the Brazilian real, the Indian rupee, and the Korean won have all fallen significantly. The UK's currency, on a relative basis, has outperformed.Now, the UK's growth is weak. Morgan Stanley forecasts growth of just 1 percent this year versus a bit over 2 percent for the United States. But it's notable just what sort of headwind the country has been dealing with. The UK household and corporate sectors are both increasing their savings rates and doing so at the same time; and more savings means less spending and economic activity. To put some context around this, U.S. households are currently saving only about 3 percent of their disposable income. In the UK, it's over 9 percent. And so, if that UK savings rate can just simply stop moving higher – or even fall – well, it would represent a big support to growth going forward. But aren't we avoiding the big question, the fiscal question? After all, we at Morgan Stanley forecast that general UK government debt to GDP will be about 96 percent this year, some of the highest levels since World War II. But this is a global market, and I do think that the relative picture matters. So, when thinking about the UK's 96 percent debt to GDP ratio, let's consider what the numbers are elsewhere. That ratio is 120 percent in China. It's 120 percent in France. It's 125 percent in the U.S. It's 138 percent in Italy, and it's 208 percent in Japan. And out of all of these countries, the UK is the only one where we think the government deficit is materially smaller in 2027 than it was in 2025. Also, year-to-date, 10-year bond yields in the UK have risen less than yields in the U.S. or Japan.A new UK Prime Minister does raise the potential for new policy, something investors will need to watch closely. The country remains sensitive to swings in global energy prices. Yet we think the underlying story is more nuanced and positive than often gets discussed. Market performance has been bearing this out, and in many cases, the bar is low. Thank you, as always, for your time. If you find Thoughts on the Market useful, let us know by leaving a review wherever you listen. And also tell a friend or colleague about us today.

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Robotaxis are accelerating along the road to commercial viability. Auto and Shared Mobility Analysts Andrew Percoco and Tim Hsiao discuss what this rapid development means for global investors.Read more insights from Morgan Stanley.----- Transcript -----Andrew Percoco: Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Andrew Percoco, Head of North America Auto and Shared Mobility Research. Tim Hsiao: And I'm Tim Hsiao, Greater China Auto and Shared Mobility Analyst.Andrew Percoco: Today, why robotaxis may be approaching a commercial inflection point. It's Thursday, August 13th at 8am in New York.Tim Hsiao: And 8 pm in Hong Kong.Andrew Percoco: So Tim, for years, robotaxis were really confined to limited pilot rollouts across the globe. You've done a lot of work over the last few weeks. We put out a big collaborative report on the robotaxi market and how it could be a $1 trillion TAM by 2040.What makes this moment different than some of the other robotaxi hype cycles that we've seen in the past? Tim Hsiao: We observe four things have been converging. Firstly, end-to-end AI is improving much faster. Secondly, hardware and the training costs are falling. And thirdly, more well-capitalized players can fund deployment. And last but not least, regulation is becoming clearer.The leading operators are no longer just demonstrating the technology. They are running fully driverless services around the clock and generating commercial rides. So in our view, the questions has been shifting from can it work to who can expand operating areas, raise utilization and lower costs at a much faster pace.So that's a very different setup versus the 2018 and 2021 hype cycles. Andrew, U.S. autonomous miles could rise from 116 million in [20]25 to 16 billion by 2032. But still make up only about 0.5 percent of all miles driven. How can robotaxis become a meaningful business while remaining such a small part of the market?Andrew Percoco: I would say, you know, obviously the U.S. mobility and transportation market is a massive market. So even with the rapid growth that we expect in robotaxis, it's going to take a long time to make a material impact in the overall market share of mobility. But if you think about the profit pools in this business, 16 billion miles at $2 a mile can, you know, pretty quickly become a very significant TAM and market opportunity.And I think, you know, fundamentally, if you think about a robotaxi business, I would argue you're better utilizing an asset... Or if you think about the, you know, car park, the amount of vehicles that are, you know, in the fleet today or in the U.S. today, they're sitting idle 90 percent of the time, right?So you're talking about taking a smaller amount of volume and driving a higher utilization on that fleet and driving much improved economics. So yes, it's going to take time to displace the, you know, hundreds of millions of cars that you have on the road in the U.S. and displace the penetration of miles driven. But ultimately, you know, we think that the profit pool and the opportunity in robotaxis are much more attractive for the entire value chain, as it relates to robotaxis. And I'd say there's a few things that we're watching along the way to make sure that, to your point, you know, this is not another hype cycle. And that there's real commercial backbone to this business.I'd say the first is seeing the rollouts continue to improve, and the density of the rollouts improve across the select cities that we've seen in the U.S. right now. Robotaxis are only available in a handful of cities in the U.S., so we want to see that continue to expand into more cities. But also the density of the fleet increase in the cities where they're currently present.And at the same time the safety side is still something that gets a lot of questions in making sure that it is truly safer than a human driver, across technology platforms, right? There's various players in this market with different approaches to technology. So, I think seeing that the safety curve is starting to or continues to improve is going to be very important for the viability of this market going forward.Obviously U.S. is very different from China. What have you seen in China? China has shown some impressive growth and utilization in some of the operators that are on the road in China. So just curious as to your perspective in terms of what you're seeing on the ground there. Tim Hsiao: I think China shows that there's much in operations and skill challenges as technology challenges. The fleet in China is above 5,000 vehicles across I think more than 7500 square kilometers in key cities. And some operators average more than 20 orders per vehicle per day.So, total cost of ownership has fallen roughly 30 to 40 percent, while remote assistance ratios are moving from like one operator for like 20 to 40, even like 50 to 60 vehicles. And we think it will achieve like one for a 100. So that has produced real break-even happens, especially in some major cities like Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Wuhan – the tier one, tier two cities.So in our view, I think in China, wider operating domains, fleet density and utilization rate, as you just mentioned, reinforce one another. So make it some more like the real commercial case. Instead of just, like trials as we saw a couple years ago. If more value shifts towards the software, fleet operation, and the data, as well as the customer relations, how does that change the profit pool, across the auto industry, especially in the U.S.?Andrew Percoco: First off, I think the auto industry in general is becoming, you know, more software focused and aware. You know, it's being led by the robotaxi market where the autonomous driving software and technology is obviously the most important part about getting this technology to market.That is ultimately trickling down to personally owned cars where you're seeing more autonomous technology being deployed. Auto OEMs are able to charge subscription revenue for this software. So it expands, I'd say, the value proposition of buying a vehicle expands the profit pool for the OEMs.It changes in some ways the cyclicality, or can change the cyclicality of the industry if you've got more kind of recurring revenues, subscription like business model versus just a hardware focused OEM model, which has been kind of the predominant focus for the OEMs historically. I'd say the other angle, interesting angle here is, you know, as this business scales, there's gonna be a lot of vehicles on the road. There's gonna be a lot of fleets of vehicles on the road. Those need to be managed by somebody or some company, right? So if you think about, you know, the rental car industry, right? These companies have been in the business of managing fleets and renting out fleets for a very long time. They know how to do that very, very well.I think there's an interesting opportunity for that part of the value chain, to participate in aiding these robotaxi fleet operators, in scaling and bringing their business to market. Charging, maintenance, reconditioning, all the things that take a lot of time and a pretty large amount of physical infrastructure.That's an opportunity for the rental car industry to come in and leverage their existing know-how to help. And, you know, I think Tim, an important part of this commercialization process is driving down the cost structure of robotaxis. They are very sensor; heavy sensor heavy. They're very compute heavy. I think China is the clear leader on cost and supply chain. I think in China you're seeing robotaxis, you know, around $35,000 to $40,000, which is considerably lower than what we see in the U.S. today.So, how do you think that that will accelerate adoption in China, but I'd say more importantly overseas as some of these robotaxis businesses look to expand outside of China. Tim Hsiao: In our view, it could be a major accelerant because as we noticed that the depreciation is still one of the largest fixed costs for robotaxi. So, as we just mentioned, I think, $35000 to $45000 US dollars, the purpose-built robotaxi can lower the breakeven utilization threshold. And make it easier to finance fleets and open cities that could not support the $150,000 US dollar vehicle.And not only in China, because globally, I think the Chinese cost deflation can be paired with the local ride-hailing platforms in the overseas market that provide demand and regulatory access. But as we highlighted in our previous, the global reports once again, we don't think the cheap vehicle is sufficiently by their self.So in our views, on top of the competitive cost structure, registration, data localization, insurance, and local operating costs can still delay the margin curve, particularly in Europe, which we think there are still quite a lot of uncertainties. So Andrew, as we just, as we just discussed, the lower vehicle costs help, but the operating model still has to work, right? So with operating costs expected to fall and the margin potentially moving above 30 percent or even higher at scale, what are the key assumptions investors should focus on?Andrew Percoco: There's a handful of key assumptions you need to sensitize to get to that 30 percent or more margin structure in this business. I'd say the first is going to be utilization, right? You need to be running these assets at a high utilization to essentially amortize those fixed costs over a larger number of miles driven.Number two, insurance today is probably one of the largest buckets of cost when we think about this business. Insurance is, from our perspective, a big unlock for this industry as the safety, as we mentioned before, the safety data continues to improve. We think that will be a reason to, to expect that the insurance costs associated with autonomous driving technology and robotaxis will continue to decline.It's about 30 cents per mile on our estimate, so it's very significant in terms of the overall cost structure of robotaxis. Drivers or where there's the most sensitivity around the model. Obviously, there's charging costs, there's maintenance costs. Those are, I think, fairly known at this point. But the utilization and insurance, I think, are the two biggest drivers of really getting that margin profile to improve over time. Tim, I guess when you think about the next, call it 10 to 15 years, I think we will put out a trillion dollar market by 2040 from a TAM perspective.What do you think the biggest markets are that investors should be watching, in terms of getting us to that trillion dollar TAM? Obviously, U.S. and China are kinda leading now, but what are the next markets people should be watching?Tim Hsiao: In addition to the major market, as you just mentioned, the U.S. and China, in our views, I think we also need to focus on markets like Europe, the Middle East and Southeast Asia. I think their scale is underappreciated, as we highlighted in our previous report. Because if you think about that, Europe, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia in aggregate have roughly four million taxis together ride-hailing vehicles.So even with 25 percent conversion, they imply that about one million is the L4s vehicles. The Middle East offers supportive regulators, you can tell, simpler operating environments and higher fares. And if you think about the Southeast Asia, the ASEAN, I think the market has dense demand and strong local platforms.And of course, Euro markets definitely can't be ignored because Euro will move more slowly, because we think the regulations and the data rules would initially add cost. But the truth is, if you think about the European market, I think the taxis or ride-hailing fares are among the highest globally, even compared to the U.S. and rest of the world.So in our view, the material margin could be more attractive. And this market, on top of the U.S. and China, in our view, can support several regional winners. So, not only limited to a very, you know, the single one or two markets.Andrew Percoco: Yeah, it's great Tim. It sounds like, you know, the robotaxi race, if you want to put it that way, will be won by those who can really bring together technology, and a compelling cost structure while also following the proper regulations and making sure the safety is improving at a rate that's acceptable to regulators.So, Tim, thanks for taking the time to talk today. And thanks for listening. If you enjoy Thoughts on the Market, please leave us a review wherever you listen, and share the podcast with a friend or colleague today.

The potential path to a durable U.S.–Iran agreement has twists and obstacles ahead. Our Head of U.S. Public Policy Research Ariana Salvatore discusses current negotiations and the impact of recent developments for investors.Disclaimer: Important note regarding economic sanctions. This report references jurisdictions which may be the subject of economic sanctions. Readers are solely responsible for ensuring that their investment activities are carried out in compliance with applicable laws.Read more insights from Morgan Stanley.----- Transcript -----Ariana Salvatore: Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Ariana Salvatore, Head of US Public Policy Research at Morgan Stanley. Today, the latest on U.S.-Iran tensions, talks, and the path to a deal. It's Wednesday Aug 12th, at 2 p.m. in New York.The diplomatic picture in the Middle East has shifted yet again. Last week, there was growing optimism that the U.S., Iran and Oman could reach an arrangement to improve commercial passage through the Strait of Hormuz. But the two sides have since hardened their positions.  This week, we've seen some bouts of escalation, and headlines have been mixed over the past few days.At the same time, the energy security picture remains complicated. The U.S. administration says the seven-day average of oil leaving Hormuz has risen to almost 9 million barrels per day. But traffic remains well below normal conditions, and the risks we think are no longer limited to the Strait. We're beginning to see potential for disruption across multiple regional chokepoints and alternate shipping routes. That brings us back to the framework negotiated nearly two months ago. The U.S. and Iran signed a Memorandum of Understanding in mid-June. It was intended to create a 60-day window for negotiating a more durable agreement. That framework addressed commercial passage through Hormuz, the U.S. naval blockade, sanctions relief and frozen funds – as well as longer-term negotiations over Iran's nuclear program. But the implementation has proven much harder than agreeing on the framework itself.So where are negotiations getting stuck? First, there's the Strait itself. Iran has tied a full reopening of the Strait to a broader package that includes an end to the U.S. blockade, sanctions relief and compensation. Washington, in turn, is trying to preserve economic leverage and appears unwilling to provide those concessions upfront. Second, sanctions sequencing: The U.S. wants relief tied to clear signs of progress, while Iran is seeking confidence that any relief is durable and not easily reversed. And third, there's the nuclear question: enrichment levels, Iran's existing stockpile, and a longer-term verification framework. These are still to be negotiated. That's likely to take longer than the 60-day time period. So, what's the right framing here for investors? We think it's not necessarily a deal or no deal binary. It's more so a series of partial agreements, implementation tests, setbacks, and renewed negotiations. After the June deal was signed, we flagged several live paths to re-escalation: execution risk around sanctions and Strait control, a potential divergence between the U.S. and Israeli objectives, domestic political pressure in Washington, and the basic challenge of resolving core nuclear questions within such a short time frame. We think those risks are now becoming more visible, but we think both sides have strong incentives to avoid a return to a full conflict, like the type of engagement we saw back in March of this year.Moving forward, the signposts we laid out in June—maritime normalization, access for the International Atomic Energy Agency, sanctions implementation, military restraint, and rhetoric—all remain the right trackers to watch. But expect the bargaining process itself to be noisy, unstable, and non-linear. Rather than a clean transition from conflict to ceasefire to final deal, the more likely path will have fits and starts. So what should investors do with that information? On oil, our commodity strategists remain constructive on prices, given the ongoing supply uncertainty and the emergence of new chokepoints across the region. Altogether, they see those constraints keeping the market relatively tight compared to the levels we briefly saw in June when the MOU was signed. If there's another sharp rise in oil prices, our U.S. equity strategists think that could be a key risk to the near term outlook. Our U.S. economists agree, but also think the Fed would need a bigger shock than markets previously expected to resume hiking. As a result, we expect the Fed to stay on hold this year. Thanks for listening. If you enjoy the show, please leave us a review wherever you listen and share Thoughts on the Market with a friend or colleague today.

Our CIO and Chief U.S. Equity Strategist Mike Wilson discusses a new market cycle, in which investors are demanding more than just growth from companies.Read more insights from Morgan Stanley.----- Transcript -----Mike Wilson: Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Mike Wilson, Morgan Stanley's CIO and Chief U.S. Equity Strategist. Today on the podcast I'll look at an important shift in what the market wants to see from companies going forward. It's Tuesday, August 11th at 11:30 am in New York. So, let's get after it.This week I am going back to our broadening thesis – but with a slightly different twist. Earlier in the year, broadening was about beta. It was about the market moving beyond a narrow set of mega-cap winners and rewarding economically sensitive areas as the rolling recovery took hold. In the last few episodes I've talked about how that phase is now over. And we're moving from an early-cycle broadening into a mid-cycle quality rotation. In short, the market is no longer demanding just growth – but growth with durable earnings, strong margins, and free cash flow. To be clear, the broadening in earnings is still very much alive. Russell 3000 median stock earnings growth is running at 15 percent, the strongest since 2021; while median sales growth is at 8 percent, the best since 2023. At the same time, 87 percent of S&P 500 companies are beating earnings expectations this quarter, and earnings revisions breadth has rebounded to 23 percent, with 76 percent of industry groups showing positive revisions breadth. However, headline earnings are no longer enough for stock outperformance. The market is saying, ‘Show me the money'— and that's exactly what should happen in a mid-cycle transition. When companies raise both earnings and free cash flow estimates, they are rewarded. When they only raise earnings and not free cash flow, the market is much less forgiving. Investors are no longer paying indiscriminately for growth. They want cash conversion. This is also why I think AI adoption remains such an important theme. The market is increasingly rewarding companies that can demonstrate real efficiency gains from AI, not just talk about the open-ended opportunity in abstract terms. That is a very different phase for the AI cycle. The first phase was about building the infrastructure. The next phase is about who uses it well. Companies that can translate AI adoption into better margins, better productivity, and better free cash flow should continue to be rewarded. In other words, AI is becoming less about the promise and more about the evidence.That framework tells us where to be positioned. I continue to favor quality and AI adopters. Within Financials, I prefer large-cap Financial Services, particularly Insurance and Capital Markets exposed businesses, where earnings revisions are inflecting and our regime analysis remains supportive. Within cyclicals, I like Discretionary Goods, where the wallet-share shift from services to goods, improved pricing, and better earnings revisions all point to catch-up potential. In Tech, I continue to prefer hyperscalers over semis. Semis can still participate tactically, especially after recent momentum unwinds, but the hyperscalers offer a better multi-month risk-reward. They have resilient core businesses, attractive relative valuation, and underappreciated optionality around AI-related ROI and adoption. Just as important, they are not only enablers of AI, but they are early adopters. They have the flexibility to spend less if the market becomes more demanding about capex discipline. In terms of remaining market risks for this year, I'm still watching interest rates and oil very closely. A gradual rise in nominal yields alongside strong economic and earnings data is not necessarily bearish. In fact, historically, that has been one of the better environments for equities because it brings back my ‘run it hot' theme. Stronger nominal growth supports revenues and earnings. The problem is not the level of rates. It is the pace of change. If back-end yields rise too quickly, the cost of capital becomes a headwind for stock valuations.Bottom line, the broadening is still happening, but the market is raising the bar. Early-cycle beta is giving way to mid-cycle quality. Earnings are broadening, but free cash flow is also necessary to be fully rewarded. AI is still an important market driver, but the market wants measurable benefits and the leadership is becoming more selective within sectors rather than across them. This shift may make the market feel less euphoric in the short term, but also healthier and more sustainable in my view. This is not a market that is simply chasing momentum any more. It is starting to separate the companies that can simply talk about growth from the companies that can convert it into durable free cash flow and longer-term value.Thanks for tuning in; I hope you found it informative and useful. Let us know what you think by leaving us a review. And if you find Thoughts on the Market worthwhile, tell a friend or colleague to try it out!

Our U.S. Consumer Finance Analyst Jay Bacow and our Co-Head of Securitized Product Research Jay Bacow explain why AI can transform the way Americans shop for, manage and refinance their mortgages.Read more insights from Morgan Stanley.----- Transcript -----Jeff Adelson: Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Jeff Adelson, Morgan Stanley's U.S. Consumer Finance Analyst.Jay Bacow: And I'm Jay Bacow, Co-Head of Securitized Products Research, also working at Morgan Stanley.Jeff Adelson: Today, how AI could change the way Americans shop for, manage, and refinance their mortgages.It's Monday, August 10th at 10am in New York. The U.S. mortgage market is worth more than $14 trillion, and its performance ultimately depends on the choices millions of homeowners make. Today, refinancing still means shopping around, comparing offers, and working through a lot of paperwork. AI could make that process much easier, especially when rates begin to fall.Jay, you led this work on our AI mortgage blue paper. What's the main way AI could change the mortgage market, and why does the borrower matter so much?Jay Bacow: So we think the biggest change would be borrower adoption of using AI agents to manage their personal finance. An agent on your phone could just monitor mortgage rates, compare lenders, reduce the paperwork, and make homeowners more likely to refinance when the economics work.Let's think about what that could be. Historically, only about 30 percent of borrowers that had the ability to lower their mortgage rate by a 100 basis points did so in a given year. When a borrower went to get a mortgage quote, less than half of them asked more than one lender for a quote.That agent could go reach out to 30 lenders, ask for a variety of different mortgages, could upload all the documents, could do this all effectively instantaneously, present the homeowner with the best option. Allow the homeowner to effectively click a button and refinance. I think this could be pretty transformative for the mortgage market.Jeff Adelson: Now, as we think about this transformation, Jay, mortgage investors still rely heavily on past refinancing behavior trends. If AI makes borrowers more likely to refi[nance] when rates fall, how could that change the way these investors value mortgage-backed securities?Jay Bacow: Well, we all know that past performance is not indicative of future performance, and those models are likely to understate future prepayments. If you get a faster response, it's going to make mortgages more negatively convex.That's going to make the durations shorten. It's likely to widen mortgage spreads by about 10 basis points in our base case. And now, if that base case were to happen and we get, let's call it 100 basis point rally in the future, we think that that could cause something like a 40 percent pickup in refinance volumes versus our current expectations of what refinance volumes would look like in that 100 basis point rally.Jeff, you cover a lot of the largest mortgage lenders. What does this mean for their business model?Jeff Adelson: So, it's pretty straightforward. More borrowers refinancing means more loans for the industry to originate. Today, we're still sitting below what I would describe as normalized levels of originations. We're sitting at about $2 trillion of mortgage originations per year. As we think about normalized, we think that's somewhere in the order [of] around $2.5 trillion. So just that $600 billion alone could get us straight there. We tend to think about this more in our bull case, where we could see something in the order of $3 trillion of originations or more, still below what we saw during the peak COVID years of about $4 trillion or more. But still pretty meaningful and material for the industry.Now, for the scaled lenders, that can create meaningful operating leverage. Mortgage companies have historically had to hire aggressively when volumes rise, and then they've had to reduce headcount when the cycle turns. AI could allow them to process more loans with the same employee base, making their cost structures more flexible and reducing the need to rebuild capacity during every single refi[nance] wave.But the earnings benefit we don't think will necessarily match the dollar benefit from volumes. If AI makes it easier for borrowers to compare offers and allows every lender to process more loans, then competition could intensify and pressure gain on sale margins. So the opportunity is a larger market and better productivity.The key question for individual lenders is: how much of that volume can they capture without giving too much back through pricing? Now, as we think about automation, Jay, it could bring in more loans, but could also intensify competition and reduce the profit lenders can earn when they originate and sell a mortgage. So, how should investors in your space weigh those two effects? Jay Bacow: So, the mortgage investors are short the option to the mortgage homeowner of when they can refinance.And if the mortgage homeowner is going to be more efficient about refinancing, the mortgage investor is going to need to get paid more for that. They're going to demand wider spreads, and they're particularly going to demand wider spreads where that option that they're shorting is worth more. That's generally how it's going to play out, but there's also other aspects as well.That duration shortening, because the borrower's more likely to refinance, means that the investors that own that duration will need to buy some more duration against that. You're also going to see more demand for duration as rates rally. So it's going to be a bid for the low strike receivers, as our options experts will pay close attention to.And then if we get a further rally, you also get a more of an impact across the consumer writ large. You can imagine a world where mortgage rates are substantially lower than they are right now. An agent could sit there and say, "Why don't you consolidate your debt between your credit card, your auto loan payments, maybe your student loan payments and your mortgage?" Allowing consumers to save more and then maybe spend that in the economy.Jeff Adelson: If we maybe take it a step beyond refinancing, how could AI affect home sales, homeownership, and access to home equity?Jay Bacow: So let's just go back to thinking about this agent that's on your phone that's looking at all the opportunities.Traditionally, right now, most people are only calling up one lender, they're getting one quote. If your agent is looking at lots of different lenders and lots of different options, you're probably going to get more ability to take out a mortgage. So you're going to get an expansion of the homeownership rate.That's going to create more demand for housing. As rates rally, you're going to get home sale activity picks up more than it used to, and people are also going to be more able to take advantage of the equity they have in their house. So, you're going to get more usage of second liens and HELOCs and cash-out refinance activity.Once again, we think this is mostly going to happen three to five years down the road, but we're not really sure exactly how this is going to play out. So Jeff, what would be some of the signs that people could look at to see if it's playing out in the three to five-year timeline that we're expecting – or slower, maybe even faster?Jeff Adelson: Sure. So yeah, I mean, I think it's going to be similar to what we've already observed as consumers ourselves and what we're seeing with all the LLMs and AI tools we're adopting today. You should see some rapid advances in the ease of use and the adoption of these technologies from a forward-facing, client-facing perspective. What we all see in the websites, what we all see in the apps.It should become easier for us to engage with the mortgage process, compare rates to actually step into the process. Whereas today, you still need to maybe speak with a bank officer, a loan officer, or a mortgage broker to get deeper into the process and actually better understand what your rate means today.So that would be the first step. The second step would be closing speeds. The average originator today still takes about 40 to 45 days to close a mortgage. The biggest and largest originators that have invested the most in technology and AI today are closing at about, call it, 12 to 20 days. So, half the industry level. So, that should come down over time and make it much easier to actually apply and finish a mortgage.And then quite frankly, the most obvious answer would just be at the given level of rates that are outstanding today, we should see a step up in the level of refi[nance] volumes. That would be the most obvious one. But that'll be the outcome of everything else we've talked about rather than the actual cause.Jay Bacow: That makes sense. So faster refinancing, it's likely to make the mortgage market more responsive when rates fall and effects that are going to reach well beyond the borrower. Jeff Adelson: That could mean higher volumes for lenders, quicker prepayments for investors, and wider swings across housing and rates markets.Jay Bacow: Jeff, thanks for taking the time to talk.Jeff Adelson: Great speaking with you, Jay.Jay Bacow: And thank you all for listening. If you enjoy Thoughts on the Market, please leave us a review wherever you listen and share the podcast with a friend or colleague today.