FidelityConnects: Jurrien Timmer – The global macro view July 6, 2026

Jurrien Timmer, Fidelity’s Director of Global Macro, shares his thoughts on what’s moving the markets around the world, to help you be better prepared for what may be next.

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<b>Subtitles are AI Generated</b>

 

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Hello, and welcome to Fidelity Connects.

 

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I'm Pamela Ritchie. As America rings in year 250

 

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the economy in the US is in the midst of a boom due to an industrial

 

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revolution led by artificial intelligence.

 

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Our next guest says trust the boom but verify it's a

 

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boom and not froth.

 

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His research helps us do just that today.

 

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We are delighted to be rejoined by Fidelity's Director of Global Macro

 

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Jurrien Timmer after his trip across Asia to visit investors.

 

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He sees a market waiting for earnings confirmation while sitting at

 

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valuation levels that clock in as quite reasonable and appropriate.

 

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Welcome, Jurrien. Great to see you again.

 

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Thank you for joining us.

 

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It's great to be back.

 

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We missed you.

 

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Three weeks Asia-Pacific. I missed you guys, too.

 

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It's actually funny, I mentioned to you before the show that

 

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clients and colleagues in the various offices there mentioned

 

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this webcast as something that they look for on YouTube.

 

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That shows you that your product here goes all the way around the world

 

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and gets viewed there, so it's very cool.

 

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That is completely fascinating.

 

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I mean, people depend on what you help us learn each week.

 

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It's that exciting to hear, that's great.

 

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I wonder, can you tell us just a little bit about your trip?

 

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I mean, how many cities did you go to?

 

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It was three weeks so you covered quite a lot of ground.

 

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So started in South Korea, in Seoul, and

 

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their sovereign wealth fund is in the southern part of the country so that was

 

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sort of a side trip in South Korea.

 

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Then six days in Tokyo, client meetings as well

 

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as our regional business review, so a Fidelity internal event.

 

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Then Beijing, then Shanghai, then Taipei,

 

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and then Hong Kong. For me, Korea and Taiwan were first

 

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time visits. I'll give you my little trivia.

 

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Korea has a really serious

 

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coffee culture. They don't drink tea, everyone drinks coffee.

 

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They take it to a real artisan level.

 

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The funny thing is if you ask for ice coffee they give you cold

 

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coffee, but no ice coffee.

 

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It just dilutes it anyway.

 

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You can ask for ice coffee — yes, it's actually quite good.

 

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Little things like that you learn.

 

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Of course, all these countries are different in many ways.

 

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In Tokyo very, very formal.

 

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You're sitting there across the room with clients and everything is translated

 

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so that's a more challenging format.

 

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Then you go to Beijing, I met all the official investors, the

 

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CIC, the Sovereign Wealth Fund, the Central Bank.

 

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There everyone speaks English, same in Shanghai.

 

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Shanghai is like the financial capital of China.

 

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It used to be Hong Kong but it really has been Shanghai for some time.

 

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My takeaway is Shanghai has this old part called the Bund, which is

 

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from the French colonial days, beautiful European-type

 

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buildings. On the other side is Pudong where you have all these massive

 

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skyscrapers with all the lights and everything.

 

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I've only stayed on the Pudong side because that's where the meetings are but

 

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I'm like, okay, I've got a weekend in there, I'm going to go on the Bund side.

 

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I thought it would be just this very quiet little sleepy thing where you can go

 

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for a walk. There were hundreds of thousands of Chinese

 

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tourists there.

 

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It's like the New York of China.

 

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If you're coming from Nebraska New York is on your bucket list.

 

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There were just countless people there roaming

 

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around on the Bund looking for that sunset and the skyline.

 

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It was very, very cool.

 

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Taiwan, really interesting.

 

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Actually, if we pull up slide 2, you've obviously

 

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heard of the building the Taipei 101 which used to be the tallest building

 

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in the world.

 

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Some climber called, I think Alex, he's called Spider

 

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Man, he climbed the whole building without any kind of safety gear.

 

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At the top of the building is this thing which is this giant

 

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yellow ball hanging on cables.

 

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That ball keeps the building from swaying.

 

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If the building sways because of wind the ball counteracts that.

 

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It's the coolest thing ever. I never in a million years would think that that

 

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could possibly be effective but apparently it works just

 

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fine. That actually became the concept

 

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for this week's report because it provides balance.

 

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The common theme with all of our meetings, and I probably had 30+ meetings,

 

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is how do we find balance in a world that is kind of

 

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extreme in many ways, how do participate

 

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in the AI boom while also protecting ourselves.

 

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Then, of course, questions about the Fed and

 

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interest rates.

 

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Interestingly enough, not so much in Korea and

 

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Japan but in the other four cities

 

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gold was at the top of the list for all the questions, or the

 

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conversation, mainly that it hasn't really provided a

 

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good diversifier this year, which we've talked about in the past.

 

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It's interesting how still gold-centric parts of

 

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that world is.

 

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One person asked the question, do you get a lot of gold questions in

 

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the States? I was like no.

 

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For people here, it's not in our DNA here in

 

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North America. Well, in Canada, I guess it is but not so much in North America.

 

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It has to do with, of course, that we have dollars  which are a reserve

 

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currency. It's a little bit more straightforward for an American to

 

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not feel like he or she has to own

 

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gold to hedge or protect against something.

 

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That's fascinating. Is the question still for

 

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most investors large, small, I'm sure you're talking to some very large

 

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companies if they were in sovereign wealth funds if that's who you're talking

 

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to, are they too ...

 

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try to be more formal about this but are they wary of not being invested

 

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in the AI hyperscalers?

 

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I mean, is it just too hard not to be exposed there?

 

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Yeah, I think they're all invested.

 

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Of course, in Korea and Taiwan, those two stock

 

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exchanges are very heavy in the semiconductor.

 

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In those countries they're making money hand over fist because

 

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that's where they invest.

 

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The big sovereign wealth funds, of course, are gonna be in the US

 

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and they're gonna be in that space just the way the S&P 500 is

 

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constructed. It's like they all wanna know if it's a bubble.

 

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Inn Korea they have these triple levered, single name

 

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ETFs, which we have in the States as well, I call them weapons of

 

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self destruction.

 

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Not to sound stereotypical but the Asians

 

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sometimes, when things start to move they get excited and

 

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they want to play the game.

 

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The Korean investors that I saw look at the retail

 

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action in Korea.

 

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They're like is that the sign that we're in a bubble?

 

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My answer has been no.

 

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The froth happens, it always happens.

 

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Anything that moves is gonna attract speculators.

 

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They used to be in Bitcoin, then they went

 

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to gold and now they're in the semiconductors.

 

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That doesn't mean it's a bubble. A bubble is only a bubble if valuations are

 

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totally unsupported by earnings, that is not

 

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the case.

 

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We can look at slide 12, for instance, which are the semiconductors,

 

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the S&P Semiconductors Index.

 

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They trade at a 20 multiple which is very, very modest.

 

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Their earnings in the bottom have tripled in a year.

 

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I mean, that doesn't happen very often.

 

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In that lies the challenge as well.

 

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That was a point that I made, industries like semiconductors

 

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or airlines, what have you, generally are cyclical.

 

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A low P/E tells you nothing in a cyclical industry, it just tells you that

 

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earnings are high.

 

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A high P/E tells you nothing because it means earnings are low.

 

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It doesn't mean that there's froth.

 

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In cyclicals you actually have to buy and sell the opposite way of a

 

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more structural name. You could argue easily, and I think that's

 

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a fair argument, that semiconductors today are not cyclical, they are secular

 

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because they are building the bricks and mortars of

 

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the AI revolution.

 

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That, clearly, is not a cyclical episode.

 

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And if it's cyclical it's 10 years out, or

 

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20 years out.

 

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Exactly. The valuations are good but what

 

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I was really honing in on because they want to know how do I protect myself.

 

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Actually,

 

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let me see, if we go to slide 6, we

 

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have the S&P AI which is the purple line at the top, and

 

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we have the S&P ex-AI which is the line way at the bottom.

 

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What we're seeing is that on days that the S& P is down

 

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the ex-AI stocks go up.

 

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Not only do they outperform but they actually go up.

 

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For me, that's the barbell.

 

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You want the growth, you wanna experience this once in a lifetime

 

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technological boom but you don't wanna have all your eggs in one basket.

 

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What's ex-AI? It's boring stuff like financials and energy.

 

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Energy is not so boring lately, of course. Then I look at

 

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the second line from the top.

 

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That gave me sort of an aha moment because these stocks have been running for

 

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some time. Eurozone banks, right?

 

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I asked the clients if you went around the world looking for the most

 

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boring stocks to buy you would probably come across European

 

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banks.

 

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You can say that because your family is from Europe.

 

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You're Dutch, it's okay. I feel like we can't say that everywhere else.

 

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It's interesting, if we go to slide 7, this is the Euro

 

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stocks banks, SX7E on Bloomberg.

 

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It's a great looking chart.

 

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The relative and absolute performance has been good.

 

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In the yellow I show the correlation between that index and the

 

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Mag-7 because it's meant to be a hedge against sort of that

 

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concentration risk. It's only 19%. To me, this is

 

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sort of a sweet spot.

 

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Why did it come down?

 

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I'm going to do more work on it.

 

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Sorry to interrupt, why did it come down from a 60% correlation down to ...

 

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what happened there?

 

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Because the Mag-7 is fragmenting.

 

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Actually, we can go to slide 8 and I can show you a different look on that.

 

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The Mag-7 has gone sideways. This is my little creeping chart where

 

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I show the 50-day correlations for the various diversifiers.

 

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You can see on the horizontal, the black

 

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line is the S&P and the vertical is the long term government and they

 

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either get more correlated or less correlated to each other.

 

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Then we have the other ones that we've discussed in the past, commodities,

 

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the dollar, market neutral. Look at the dotted black line, that's ex-AI,

 

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and look at that dotted blue line, those are the Eurozone banks.

 

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They are acting like total diversifiers right now.

 

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They're not even acting like stocks.

 

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The SPW, the green, which is the equal-weighted index is

 

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still up there where you would expect it to be but these banks

 

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and the non-AI stocks are not.

 

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To me, that is, at least for now, the holy grail of

 

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diversification, especially for the banks which are

 

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actually outperforming the index alongside with

 

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the AI names.

 

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I don't know how long it will last but that's a pretty good backdrop.

 

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That was the point I was trying to...

 

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That's the yellow ball.

 

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Yes. That's the point I was trying to get across.

 

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You don't have to have all your eggs in one basket.

 

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You don't have to be out of it because I think it's still a

 

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boom, but you can have some diversification that actually does

 

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not have to deter from your performance.

 

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These European banks are those.

 

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The reason they're working is because for the last several years

 

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these banks have gotten very smart about unlocking shareholder value, they're

 

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doing more share buybacks.

 

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They produce a good yield, a good dividend yield and they are rationalizing

 

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their balance sheet. It's the same that the Japanese have been doing which is

 

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why Japan has been strong, at least one of the reasons.

 

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That, to me, is the nice story that you actually can have your

 

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cake and eat it too right now.

 

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That's always nice because that doesn't happen very often.

 

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In Canada I guess it's discussed as the banks having certain

 

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parts of the regulatory

 

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infrastructure dismantled partly, for other reasons but partly so

 

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that it can land into the AI buildout.

 

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I'm sure the European banks are in a position to do just that

 

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as well. Is that another piece of it?

 

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They are, of course, highly regulated which is why

 

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they're so safe.

 

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They are regulated not only by the EU but by their own country.

 

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It's probably gonna be harder to do than in Canada

 

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or the US. The US has a more holistic vision of

 

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how to build this out.

 

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Actually, it's interesting, I was talking to a couple of our equity PMs

 

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here in the US and they were talking about how the financial

 

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sector actually is the next sector to really get leverage

 

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out of the AI boom.

 

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They're building a lot on these models.

 

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If you think about it these AI models, these LLMs or agents,

 

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they need massive amounts of data to train themselves.

 

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Who has more data than banks, right? They have millions and millions of

 

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customers with long, long records.

 

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Spending habits and all kinds of things.

 

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The industry, it's not the most efficient because

 

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it is highly regulated. You can really see the financial sector getting

 

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the next sort of downstream dividend, and maybe Europe

 

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is part of that. I think for Europe it's more that they're not sleepy banks.

 

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They're paying back shareholders through buybacks, and that's

 

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been a big engine. That's been an engine in the US until recently.

 

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Where's my chart, 9.

 

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It's interesting that this is happening in Europe and Japan while in the Mag-7

 

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the opposite is happening. These companies, the hyperscalers are

 

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burning through their cash because they're spending it all on CapEx and that

 

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leaves less money for buybacks.

 

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That's kind of the bright green there.

 

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It's a very subtle point. It doesn't have to be negative at all because if the

 

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money is spent well then that's fine, of course.

 

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But it's a subtle change because we've had this nonstop engine over the

 

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last 20 years of companies reducing the share count through

 

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buybacks and not increasing it because they had very few IPOs.

 

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Both of those things are now changing so a very, very subtle move.

 

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Back to the coffee not being diluted by ice, yeah.

 

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Exactly

 

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Tell us a little bit about ... we were on European banks and the discussion

 

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there in Europe this week, well, actually, in Turkey which is not

 

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quite Europe, it's a lot of things, it's a bridge.

 

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They are having the NATO summit and this seems to be the moment, or it's being

 

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couched as the moment where there is a physical defence spending decoupling

 

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of the United States and Europe and, we think, Canada

 

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sort of take that on more.

 

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Is there an investor story to this?

 

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I mean it means more fiscal spending. Of course, Europe

 

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has been fiscally fairly austere for some time since the

 

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Eurozone crisis. Of course, the US is spending like drunken

 

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sailors but that's that's not a new story.

 

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This goes back to the story, was it a year ago when

 

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Trump went to Germany or NATO and said you got to pull your own weight, which

 

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is totally fair, they should be pulling their own weight.

 

16:44.903 --> 16:49.408

Then kind of the German defence spend

 

16:49.408 --> 16:53.712

as well as infrastructure spend became part of the story for European

 

16:53.712 --> 16:55.447

equities.

 

16:55.447 --> 16:59.752

This latest news, I think, only seals that

 

16:59.752 --> 17:03.956

as something that is going to have some legs.

 

17:03.956 --> 17:07.393

It's good for investors because it means you can buy European defence stocks or

 

17:07.393 --> 17:11.630

Canadian defence stocks or other infrastructure types of buildout

 

17:11.630 --> 17:15.067

that support that.

 

17:15.067 --> 17:19.004

Fiscal spending is not good for sustainable fiscal health but it

 

17:19.004 --> 17:23.175

does get the wheels turning for spending and

 

17:23.175 --> 17:25.210

therefore for earnings.

 

17:25.210 --> 17:28.714

When we go to the leaderboard, which is in some of your notes today, it's

 

17:28.714 --> 17:32.184

interesting what's on top. You mentioned, certainly, Japan earlier.

 

17:32.217 --> 17:32.584

Slide one.

 

17:32.618 --> 17:34.586

This is slide 1, yes.

 

17:34.586 --> 17:38.757

You take a look at the international trade which is also there.

 

17:38.757 --> 17:42.828

Small-caps are a little bit part of the everything else trade.

 

17:42.828 --> 17:45.297

I mean, there's a lot of things in the everything else trade but they're one of

 

17:45.297 --> 17:49.468

them. Take us to what you're seeing right there at the top and why it's

 

17:49.468 --> 17:50.936

there right now.

 

17:50.936 --> 17:55.374

Yeah, and actually that's really surprising to me.

 

17:55.374 --> 18:00.379

SG is small growth, SC is small-caps, SV is small value.

 

18:00.379 --> 18:06.919

EM at the top, we know that. It's Korea, Taiwan, semiconductors.

 

18:06.919 --> 18:10.923

Small growth I can see because there are kind of cats and dogs in

 

18:10.923 --> 18:14.326

there that are a play on AI.

 

18:14.326 --> 18:18.063

A company will just say, hey, we're doing AI now and they get bid up because

 

18:18.063 --> 18:21.333

the GameStop crowd gets involved.

 

18:21.333 --> 18:25.404

I'm not surprised by that but small value I'm like, wait, where did that come

 

18:25.437 --> 18:28.807

from? It does show a nice broadening indeed.

 

18:28.807 --> 18:29.808

Then you've got...

 

18:30.075 --> 18:32.945

It's part of the breadth story.

 

18:32.945 --> 18:37.583

Large value is up there, and REITs which have done nothing for some time.

 

18:37.583 --> 18:42.521

It's actually a very nice picture and it brings me, actually, to slide 5.

 

18:42.521 --> 18:46.492

We had this conversation at the beginning of the year where we had

 

18:46.492 --> 18:50.028

that bullish broadening.

 

18:50.028 --> 18:53.665

By a bullish broadening I meant that it's a broadening that does not come at

 

18:53.665 --> 18:57.903

the expense of the market's beta, meaning the market doesn't

 

18:57.903 --> 19:01.940

go down because the broadening doesn't involve the Mah-7

 

19:01.940 --> 19:04.176

going down a lot.

 

19:04.176 --> 19:06.245

We're having another wave of this right now.

 

19:06.245 --> 19:10.315

So 68% of stocks are above their moving average, which is nice to

 

19:10.315 --> 19:14.486

see, and the equal-weighted index in blue is completely caught

 

19:14.486 --> 19:17.523

up to the cap-weighted index.

 

19:17.523 --> 19:21.560

If you look at, where am I, slide 4

 

19:21.560 --> 19:25.497

you can see the Mag-7 has now been going sideways

 

19:25.497 --> 19:29.067

for, what, nine months or so.

 

19:29.067 --> 19:33.071

That's actually a really great thing to see because they could

 

19:33.071 --> 19:37.176

be going down, and if they go down a lot S&P is going to go

 

19:37.176 --> 19:41.246

down and then you have a broadening that is a bearish

 

19:41.246 --> 19:43.048

broadening. We don't like those.

 

19:43.048 --> 19:45.050

We like bullish broadenings.

 

19:45.050 --> 19:49.121

The fact that the Mag-7 is just sort of treading water, I guess it's

 

19:49.121 --> 19:52.224

not good if you're in the Mag-7, you want more, but, actually, I think it's

 

19:52.257 --> 19:57.129

very, very good because it does allow the market to have more participation

 

19:57.129 --> 20:01.166

without it costing you beta, if you will.

 

20:01.166 --> 20:05.237

It's fascinating. You go into detail on what's healthy at,

 

20:05.237 --> 20:09.308

I think, 68% the Mag-7 taking a

 

20:09.308 --> 20:11.376

break going sideways.

 

20:11.376 --> 20:15.247

All of this is where we are today and it's the moment and it's sort of the end

 

20:15.247 --> 20:17.883

of the first half.

 

20:17.883 --> 20:21.587

Now we have second quarter earnings which are around the corner.

 

20:21.587 --> 20:25.624

It does seem with every release of earnings there's reason for

 

20:25.624 --> 20:29.995

people to feel more risk-averse and concerned that

 

20:29.995 --> 20:31.697

the punch bowl gets taken away.

 

20:31.697 --> 20:36.335

I don't know if second quarter earnings is more so than first quarter earnings

 

20:36.335 --> 20:38.971

but what's your take?

 

20:38.971 --> 20:41.506

So let's go to slide 10.

 

20:41.506 --> 20:45.677

The earnings numbers are still very, very strong.

 

20:45.677 --> 20:50.215

They're growing 30% year-over-year which is very unusual,

 

20:50.215 --> 20:52.184

at least not ...

 

20:52.184 --> 20:55.988

it's very unusual coming in the middle of a cycle.

 

20:55.988 --> 21:00.092

Inevitably the growth rate is going to decelerate and that's

 

21:00.092 --> 21:04.363

not necessarily a bad thing because these things mean revert at

 

21:04.363 --> 21:08.433

some point. To me, that'll be a good test for the market because that will

 

21:08.433 --> 21:12.771

tell us how much fast

 

21:12.771 --> 21:14.573

money is in the market.

 

21:14.573 --> 21:17.909

Right now I don't think we need to worry about it because the numbers are still

 

21:17.909 --> 21:22.047

improving. These are the various yearly estimates

 

21:22.047 --> 21:26.051

for the S&P. Like you said, earnings season will start next

 

21:26.051 --> 21:29.988

week and the incoming growth rate is very high and all

 

21:29.988 --> 21:33.992

the other seasons that are behind it are very high.

 

21:33.992 --> 21:36.595

The earnings story is clearly a boom.

 

21:36.595 --> 21:40.098

That, of course, is keeping valuations down.

 

21:40.098 --> 21:44.336

If we go to slide 13 you can see

 

21:44.336 --> 21:48.940

that for the S&P the 2-year forward earnings

 

21:48.940 --> 21:51.610

is now at $422.

 

21:51.610 --> 21:55.714

It was at $247 when the bull market began so not

 

21:55.714 --> 21:58.050

quite a double but pretty close.

 

21:58.050 --> 22:02.921

That's keeping the S&P P/E at around 22 times.

 

22:02.921 --> 22:06.858

It's keeping valuations in check which, of course, is a good thing.

 

22:06.858 --> 22:10.896

You want an earnings-driven bull market and that's

 

22:10.896 --> 22:14.266

what we're still getting. It'll be interesting to see with earnings season what

 

22:14.266 --> 22:18.737

companies will say, especially non-AI companies,

 

22:18.737 --> 22:22.741

in terms of what they're doing on their AI budget, how much are

 

22:22.741 --> 22:27.112

they spending. The thinking is that if the hyperscalers

 

22:27.112 --> 22:31.083

have saturated their buildout, which there is

 

22:31.083 --> 22:35.420

no sign of that yet but let's say that happens, then the semiconductors

 

22:35.420 --> 22:38.724

start to fade and then you have a very important momentum part of the market

 

22:38.724 --> 22:43.261

that starts to fade. Then you could argue that the whole thing starts to

 

22:43.261 --> 22:46.665

trade a lot less bullish than it has.

 

22:46.665 --> 22:50.602

If there are other sectors behind these hyperscalers, like the

 

22:50.602 --> 22:54.639

financials, who are going to build out their own AI

 

22:54.639 --> 22:58.176

they're going to need semiconductors.

 

22:58.176 --> 23:02.381

That's kind of the next phase and it'll be interesting to see what

 

23:02.381 --> 23:05.016

companies say and how committed they are to it.

 

23:05.016 --> 23:09.121

It becomes less circular financing in that way and broadens out

 

23:09.121 --> 23:10.789

which, again, is healthy.

 

23:10.789 --> 23:11.623

It goes downstream.

 

23:11.623 --> 23:16.094

It goes downstream. It also sort of speaks to the idea of

 

23:16.128 --> 23:20.732

AI in said large companies, banks being one but any company really,

 

23:20.732 --> 23:24.503

being accretive, which it isn't yet as far as we know.

 

23:24.503 --> 23:25.303

Correct.

 

23:25.303 --> 23:27.272

Which will come eventually.

 

23:27.272 --> 23:31.343

Since we have not seen you in a few weeks I don't

 

23:31.343 --> 23:34.212

think we've had an opportunity to ask you about Kevin Warsh's first meeting,

 

23:34.212 --> 23:38.150

how he led, the idea that he appeared

 

23:38.150 --> 23:42.254

to help markets with we will hike if we need to,

 

23:42.254 --> 23:45.524

which appears to be what markets needed to hear, whether he will or won't we

 

23:45.524 --> 23:50.395

don't know, but they apparently needed to here that seemed to be the reaction.

 

23:50.395 --> 23:54.566

What are your thoughts? There's all kinds of tasks force, maybe

 

23:54.566 --> 23:59.971

less forward guidance, that sounds true, I'm dying to know what you think.

 

23:59.971 --> 24:04.075

The three topics that were discussed at every meeting in Asia was

 

24:04.075 --> 24:06.745

what we just discussed about the AI boom.

 

24:06.745 --> 24:11.516

The second one was the Warsh Fed and how is it going to do that?

 

24:11.516 --> 24:15.454

Not surprisingly, the Chinese central bank was very interested about whether

 

24:15.454 --> 24:17.656

Warsh was actually going to raise rates or not.

 

24:17.656 --> 24:21.626

Just hold for a minute. You were sitting with the Chinese central bank

 

24:21.626 --> 24:23.528

while we were missing you.

 

24:23.528 --> 24:27.666

That's amazing.

 

24:27.666 --> 24:29.734

I don't think he wants to tighten.

 

24:29.768 --> 24:34.239

He's talking very hawkish which is what he should be doing.

 

24:34.239 --> 24:38.310

I think he's trying to have the markets do the tightening for him

 

24:38.310 --> 24:40.278

which is not a bad play.

 

24:40.278 --> 24:42.013

He wants it to be less transparent.

 

24:42.013 --> 24:47.085

I think he wants to go back to the Greenspan days.

 

24:47.085 --> 24:51.189

I think that's not necessarily bad. All the things we know like

 

24:51.189 --> 24:56.094

forward guidance, the dot plot, QE, are

 

24:56.127 --> 25:00.065

all byproducts of the zero interest rate days following the financial

 

25:00.065 --> 25:04.336

crisis. They were not used before then and

 

25:04.336 --> 25:08.573

you could argue they're not appropriate or needed to use when

 

25:08.573 --> 25:10.308

rates are normal, which they are.

 

25:10.308 --> 25:14.346

We're in a normal interest rate environment meaning they're repressed

 

25:14.346 --> 25:16.014

by central banks.

 

25:16.047 --> 25:20.385

He makes a good point that the Fed shouldn't be as big as

 

25:20.385 --> 25:23.788

it is. These tasks force, I think, will address those.

 

25:23.788 --> 25:27.926

He can direct all of that and

 

25:27.926 --> 25:29.895

shape it the way he wants to.

 

25:29.895 --> 25:33.865

What he can't do is direct monetary policy if it's not supported by

 

25:33.865 --> 25:37.235

markets or his fellow FOMC members.

 

25:37.235 --> 25:39.504

That's why he's talking a hawkish game.

 

25:39.504 --> 25:43.642

I don't think he wants to have to raise rates as the

 

25:43.642 --> 25:47.846

first action he does under his new boss

 

25:47.846 --> 25:51.950

because his predecessor was also a boss appointee and we all

 

25:51.950 --> 25:53.785

see how that happened.

 

25:53.785 --> 25:57.322

I think he's just trying to thread the needle here and I think it'll probably

 

25:57.322 --> 25:58.323

work.

 

25:58.857 --> 26:03.295

A question coming in about the fiscal side of things in

 

26:03.295 --> 26:07.399

the US and the discussion of earnings stories, what you're

 

26:07.399 --> 26:11.703

looking for on corporate tax breaks from the One Big Beautiful Bill,

 

26:11.703 --> 26:15.106

which is hard to believe that was a year ago, just about, when that got

 

26:15.106 --> 26:20.145

through, that filtering through and sort of where the current administration's

 

26:20.145 --> 26:26.718

role in the earnings story comes in there, if at all.

 

26:26.718 --> 26:29.955

The mantra is run it hot and it certainly is doing that.

 

26:29.955 --> 26:33.992

The AI story has obviously a lot to do with that but so

 

26:33.992 --> 26:36.795

does the fiscal, the One Big Beautiful Bill.

 

26:36.795 --> 26:40.732

Capital flows are still

 

26:40.732 --> 26:44.869

strong, earnings are booming, interest rates

 

26:44.869 --> 26:47.872

are relatively well behaved, so is the dollar.

 

26:47.906 --> 26:51.876

It's a pretty good spot

 

26:51.876 --> 26:52.877

to be in actually.

 

26:53.812 --> 26:57.782

Got a stable currency, interest rates, I do see interest rate risk up to

 

26:57.782 --> 27:02.153

5%. That is still a risk that I foresee.

 

27:02.153 --> 27:05.924

It wouldn't be the end of the world for a 50 basis points rise.

 

27:05.924 --> 27:09.961

If it knocks down the PE on the S&P per the Fed model it would

 

27:09.961 --> 27:14.799

take the S&P down 3 or 4 points as the P/E ratio,

 

27:14.799 --> 27:18.903

which would be like a 15% correction but if earnings are growing 30% then

 

27:18.903 --> 27:21.640

it fully offsets that.

 

27:21.640 --> 27:25.910

I think most of the risks are in check for now

 

27:25.910 --> 27:29.681

but there are relatively easy ways to mitigate them.

 

27:29.681 --> 27:34.252

Like we said, the banks, especially the European banks, and

 

27:34.252 --> 27:36.921

other diversifiers.

 

27:36.921 --> 27:42.560

I don't know if we have time to talk about gold.

 

27:42.560 --> 27:46.765

One of the questions I got very often was why hasn't gold been a

 

27:46.765 --> 27:50.068

diversifier? Why is it not working anymore?

 

27:50.068 --> 27:54.105

On page 15 I can show that gold used

 

27:54.105 --> 27:58.309

to be a play on real rates, then it became a play on global liquidity.

 

27:58.309 --> 28:02.380

That's the red line. That's just a regression of global liquidity and the price

 

28:02.380 --> 28:06.551

of gold. You can see that the price went way higher than it

 

28:06.551 --> 28:09.587

should have and is now way lower than it should have.

 

28:09.587 --> 28:13.525

That's for two reasons. One is the growth rate in global liquidity peaked at

 

28:13.525 --> 28:18.496

12% right as gold peaked and is now down to 6% and falling.

 

28:18.496 --> 28:22.534

That probably has to do with central banks sounding more hawkish.

 

28:22.534 --> 28:26.771

The other part, if we go to 16, you can see that the speculators

 

28:26.771 --> 28:30.809

used to be in Bitcoin, then they went over to gold

 

28:30.809 --> 28:34.546

because gold was running because central banks were buying.

 

28:34.546 --> 28:36.848

Speculators are not loyal to anything.

 

28:36.848 --> 28:41.052

They'll play in any space where there's price action.

 

28:41.052 --> 28:45.123

You can see that right as gold peaked they started moving elsewhere, and that

 

28:45.123 --> 28:48.226

elsewhere, of course, is semiconductors and AI.

 

28:48.226 --> 28:52.163

What you have is a combination of slowing global money

 

28:52.163 --> 28:56.468

supply growth and an exodus of the fast money.

 

28:56.468 --> 28:58.603

That's creating an oversold condition.

 

28:58.603 --> 29:03.041

The blue bars at the bottom shows you that gold is 13% oversold

 

29:03.041 --> 29:06.044

relative to the money supply.

 

29:06.044 --> 29:10.014

I don't see a catalyst yet for a reversal but I do see that

 

29:10.048 --> 29:13.485

it's attractive here as an accumulation strategy.

 

29:13.485 --> 29:15.987

The same applies to Bitcoin.

 

29:15.987 --> 29:17.789

It is terrific to have you back.

 

29:17.789 --> 29:21.793

Thank you for your perspective today and for summing up where we are and

 

29:21.793 --> 29:23.895

where we're going. Glad to have you back.

 

29:23.895 --> 29:26.531

Thanks for watching or listening to the Fidelity Connects

 

29:26.531 --> 29:30.835

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30:00.231 --> 30:04.068

The views and opinions expressed on this podcast are those of the participants,

 

30:04.068 --> 30:08.006

and do not necessarily reflect those of Fidelity Investments Canada ULC or

 

30:08.006 --> 30:12.010

its affiliates. This podcast is for informational purposes only, and should not

 

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Or an endorsement, recommendation, or sponsorship of any entity or securities

 

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Their values change frequently, and past performance may not be repeated.

 

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Fees, expenses, and commissions are all associated

 

30:31.896 --> 30:33.698

with fund investments.

 

30:33.698 --> 30:36.301

Thanks again. We'll see you next time.

 

44:29.867 --> 44:32.503

Thanks for watching or listening to the Fidelity Connects

 

44:32.503 --> 44:36.807

podcast. Now if you haven't done so already, please subscribe to Fidelity

 

44:36.807 --> 44:40.177

Connects on your podcast platform of choice.

 

44:40.177 --> 44:43.013

And if you like what you're hearing, please leave a review or a five-star

 

44:43.013 --> 44:46.984

rating. Fidelity Mutual Funds and ETFs are available by working with

 

44:46.984 --> 44:50.354

a financial advisor or through an online brokerage account.

 

44:50.354 --> 44:54.058

Visit fidelity.ca/howtobuy for more information.

 

44:54.058 --> 44:57.895

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44:57.895 --> 45:02.032

webcasts. And don't forget to follow Fidelity Canada on YouTube, LinkedIn,

 

45:02.032 --> 45:03.333

and Instagram.

 

45:03.333 --> 45:06.203

We'll end today's show with a short disclaimer.

 

45:06.203 --> 45:10.040

The views and opinions expressed on this podcast are those of the participants,

 

45:10.040 --> 45:13.977

and do not necessarily reflect those of Fidelity Investments Canada ULC or

 

45:13.977 --> 45:17.981

its affiliates. This podcast is for informational purposes only, and should not

 

45:17.981 --> 45:20.517

be construed as investment, tax, or legal advice.

 

45:20.517 --> 45:22.820

It is not an offer to sell or buy.

 

45:22.820 --> 45:27.157

Or an endorsement, recommendation, or sponsorship of any entity or securities

 

45:27.157 --> 45:31.962

cited. Read a fund's prospectus before investing, funds are not guaranteed.

 

45:31.962 --> 45:35.532

Their values change frequently, and past performance may not be repeated.

 

45:35.532 --> 45:37.868

Fees, expenses, and commissions are all associated

 

45:37.868 --> 45:39.670

with fund investments.

 

45:39.670 --> 45:42.272

Thanks again. We'll see you next time.

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