Latest / Merryn Talks Money / Markets Wrap: Inflation Means Bad News for Burnham

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Markets Wrap: Inflation Means Bad News for Burnham · Merryn Talks Money

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Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio News.
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Speaker 2: Welcome to the Merton Talks Money Market rap, where we
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Speaker 2: talk about the biggest moves and markets this week and
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Speaker 2: what's driving them. I'm Join Stewick, senior reporter and author
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Speaker 2: of the Money Still newsletter, and joining me in the
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Speaker 2: studio will Merton's away and holiday is Simon White, Simon's
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Speaker 2: a macro strategies at Bloomberg and author of the Microscope
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Speaker 2: Call Them Simon, thanks very much for joining us today.
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Speaker 1: Thanks for having me on, John.
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Speaker 2: I shall have noticed Simon is also from my neck
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Speaker 2: of the woods. If you require subtitles for this podcast,
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Speaker 2: then I agree gret to inform you that you are
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Speaker 2: fired as a listener. Don't be so cheeky. Races after that.
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Speaker 2: After that warning, Simon. British politics. It's been interesting this week,
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Speaker 2: hasn't it.
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Speaker 1: It's kicking off again, by the way, I will say
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Speaker 1: the Glaswegian accent is a lot stronger than my Edinburgh
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Speaker 1: softer tones, so the subtitles might be needed for you. Yes,
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Speaker 1: it's been interesting.
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Speaker 2: Shots filed.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, it's been interesting. I mean when hasn't it been
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Speaker 1: in pretty politics for some time? Probably, like a lot
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Speaker 1: of people like in the same way it was with
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Speaker 1: Keir Starmer, like hopeful that it was all going to
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Speaker 1: work out, but it didn't, and we're kind of here
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Speaker 1: again Burnham. Is he going to fail in a more
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Speaker 1: you know, charismatic fashion, or maybe he's gonna, you know,
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Speaker 1: get through what he wants to get through. But it's
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Speaker 1: hard to sort of reason, you know, with these all
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Speaker 1: these promises now about what he's going to spend and
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Speaker 1: nothing to do with what he's going to cut, and
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Speaker 1: he's sticking to the fiscal rules. So what's your only
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Speaker 1: lever left.
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Speaker 2: Well, the only lever left is tax and winderling with
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Speaker 2: your take is on this. I mean we're all ready
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Speaker 2: he got the highest tax rates in the generation or
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Speaker 2: maybe two generations.
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Speaker 1: In terms of GDP. I just looked at this. It's
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Speaker 1: basically outside of war or the aftermath of war, it's
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Speaker 1: never been higher.
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Speaker 2: Yes, So we are really kind of maxed out as
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Speaker 2: far as the tax take goes as well. Nine. That's
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Speaker 2: one thing it's easy to see with the borrowing that
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Speaker 2: you know, we're very high borrowing. It's easy to see
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Speaker 2: with the spending because obviously the borrowing is so tight
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Speaker 2: that the self evident was spending too much, but we're
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Speaker 2: also taxing too much. So I do wonder how much
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Speaker 2: more can he squeeze the pips as it well, I mean,
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Speaker 2: even if he wants to pluck the goose.
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Speaker 1: I mean he's got, as I say, a limited room
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Speaker 1: for maneuver. I mean, I don't know. I mean, look,
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Speaker 1: there's been a couple of articles in the papers recently,
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Speaker 1: like the GIN and Ganesh and FT, and it was
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Speaker 1: Matthew's side and Sunday Times making the same point that
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Speaker 1: they kind of want him to fail. Yeah, we need
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Speaker 1: another nineteen seventies winter of discontent to kind of reset
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Speaker 1: the system.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, this was very much because I read the Ganesh one.
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Speaker 2: He was basically saying, I this has to go pair
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Speaker 2: shaped and definitely go Pia shaped in quite a catastrophic way,
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Speaker 2: so that everyone accepts, or the voters accept that actually
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Speaker 2: we need to do something different. I mean, I didn't
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Speaker 2: expect the FT come out with the acceleration this that argument,
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Speaker 2: I have to say, So that was quite interesting to see.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah it is. I mean it's it's interesting and
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Speaker 1: as I said, the same thought process elsewhere. I mean,
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Speaker 1: he's saying all the right things right now and I
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Speaker 1: think the sort of cosmetic, if you like, announcement's made
3:28
Speaker 1: so far. I mean, you know, the bus cap yeah,
3:31
Speaker 1: and they got the VAT and fuel and the business
3:35
Speaker 1: rates thing. I mean in the grand scheme of thing
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Speaker 1: don't cost a lot, but they sound good.
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Speaker 2: Yeah.
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Speaker 1: So my sort of sliver of hope is that he
3:41
Speaker 1: sort of like says the right things to keep the
3:44
Speaker 1: left of his party, you know, tickle their belly a
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Speaker 1: little bit, keep them happy, and he's able some point
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Speaker 1: down the line to persuade them for the need to say,
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Speaker 1: cut the welfare bill right by the way, that that
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Speaker 1: alone would solve everything. I mean, it's a roughly fifty
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Speaker 1: billion increase since the pandemic, and a lot of that
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Speaker 1: happened in a lot of countries because of the pandemic,
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Speaker 1: of course, but a lot of other countries their welfare
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Speaker 1: bills went back down. I was stuck. So I can't
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Speaker 1: imagine we were uniquely sick in some way.
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Speaker 2: YEA.
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Speaker 1: So it feels like in that fifty billion or roughly
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Speaker 1: what it is, would solve all your problems, right, your
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Speaker 1: defense problem solved, NHS. I'm sure you could throw money
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Speaker 1: at that. Again, you've got a lot of things you
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Speaker 1: could fix on the back of that, So that seems
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Speaker 1: to me you need to get that one right. And
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Speaker 1: if he's able to do a kind of Tony Blair
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Speaker 1: persuade them, it's in their interests. It's like part of
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Speaker 1: the labor movement, you know, And that Alan Milburn review
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Speaker 1: about that really framed it in the right way that, like,
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Speaker 1: you know, this is actually a negative for people. So
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Speaker 1: if he's has that charisma and that ability to persuade
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Speaker 1: in the way that blaured it, maybe it's possible that,
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Speaker 1: you know, he's able to keep them happy in some
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Speaker 1: ways and then persuade them to do the big decisions
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Speaker 1: that they need to do. But I don't know what
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Speaker 1: you think about that, whether you think that's likely or.
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Speaker 2: I do think that one thing that people possibly under rate,
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Speaker 2: and especially people in our position or not. I mean
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Speaker 2: people who sort of see the numbers and think, well,
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Speaker 2: the numbers are the same. Just swapping out the guys
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Speaker 2: isn't going to do something. But I do think that
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Speaker 2: slightly let's kill Stamer off the hook for how bad
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Speaker 2: he actually was. And I do feel that Starmer specifically,
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Speaker 2: and without being cruel or biased, I just think he
5:28
Speaker 2: was clearly not a great leader, and at every step
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Speaker 2: of the way you could see there were actually mistakes
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Speaker 2: made and the welfare reform. On the one hand, I
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Speaker 2: agree that the left of the Labor Party is knee
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Speaker 2: jack against anything that touches benefits. At the same time,
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Speaker 2: you had people in that rebellion that weren't really in
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Speaker 2: that wing of the party and they were actually just
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Speaker 2: rebelling against other elements of the leadership. But also the
5:54
Speaker 2: fact that it was not particularly well thought through. And
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Speaker 2: I do get the impression, as you say, if you've
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Speaker 2: framed it is a kind of working class waste of
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Speaker 2: people's ability issue as it is, and if you actually
6:07
Speaker 2: kind of put it through a proper kind of review,
6:11
Speaker 2: for example, that comes back with what are you know,
6:15
Speaker 2: considered recommendations for ditching this stuff, then actually somebody could
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Speaker 2: make the case for it. I guess I do wonder
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Speaker 2: low if the idea of you know, kind of cutting
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Speaker 2: benefits is just going to go back to oh, this
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Speaker 2: is austerity three point zero or whatever that it often
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Speaker 2: seems to run it. But I know, I do think
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Speaker 2: there's there's a sliver of a chance.
6:40
Speaker 1: That that's that's come out. My optimistic thing and obviously,
6:43
Speaker 1: well we'll see the near future. Mean, he's picks so
6:46
Speaker 1: far I think have been pretty good for his cabinet,
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Speaker 1: certainly surprising and very surprising. But I think, you know,
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Speaker 1: it's kind of ticked a lot of boxes. I would say, like,
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Speaker 1: it's definitely you know, it's not scared the horses. I
6:55
Speaker 1: would say, any of these picks really, you know, I
6:58
Speaker 1: obviously Healy is the Chancellor, keeping the mood in the
7:02
Speaker 1: Home Office, streating in defense. You know, they all seem
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Speaker 1: to me like pretty reasonable picks. He's kind of like,
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Speaker 1: it feels like he's off to a good start. But
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Speaker 1: the mathematics you can't get away from the fact that
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Speaker 1: he's going to need to cut spending one way or
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Speaker 1: the other. And we don't think he can probably tax
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Speaker 1: that much more. I mean, he might try, but this
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Speaker 1: is where obviously it could all start to tell ravel and.
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Speaker 2: Just kind of fall apart. I mean, but I think
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Speaker 2: this is and this is moving on in the kind
7:27
Speaker 2: of wider markets. This is the other big issue about
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Speaker 2: the spending is that he doesn't have control over the
7:34
Speaker 2: biggest variable effect in guilt rates, which is the Iran
7:38
Speaker 2: war and oil prices, and we kind of thought. This
7:42
Speaker 2: was I'm sorry, we market's king to seem to think
7:45
Speaker 2: that this was a pretty much a done deal up
7:49
Speaker 2: until obviously the ceasefire started to fall apart. And now
7:51
Speaker 2: this morning we've got the hooties attacking Saudi tankers in
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Speaker 2: the Red Sea, which means it's the actual was actually
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Speaker 2: getting moss rather than getting closer to some kind of truth.
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Speaker 2: So I mean, what do you who do you? What
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Speaker 2: does that mean for asset prices? Because you tackle the
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Speaker 2: macro stuff, and you know, it's some kind of interesting
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Speaker 2: about inflation, but not just about inflation being high, about
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Speaker 2: it also being kind of volatile and how that makes
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Speaker 2: it all even worse.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly that. I mean oil prices, you say, back
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Speaker 1: in the rise, we're almost that one hundred again on
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Speaker 1: you know, Brent oil prices, and you've got all the ingredients.
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Speaker 1: I mean, really, inflation never went away in the first place,
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Speaker 1: that's one thing. And this getting regn you know, this reignition,
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Speaker 1: if you like, from this renewed rise in oil prices
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Speaker 1: is a problem. And what happens with inflation is it?
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Speaker 1: That's bad enough? Of course prices go up, everything gets
8:51
Speaker 1: more costly, of course, But when inflation rises, it tends
8:54
Speaker 1: to to use a polysyllabic term that's hetero schatastistic. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: now we do need subtitles. But you basically is that
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Speaker 1: the higher it gets, the more volatile it gets. And
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Speaker 1: you see that with inflation. It's already beginning to happen,
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Speaker 1: certainly in US inflation, so you're seeing that kind of
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Speaker 1: So you've got this added uncertainty with prices given that,
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Speaker 1: like you know, it's essentially the pursing power of your
9:20
Speaker 1: money is pretty much the most important signal out there,
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Speaker 1: and if that becomes more uncertain it feeds into all
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Speaker 1: sorts of goods. Prices, uncertainty, fed policy uncertainty, boring rates, uncertainty,
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Speaker 1: cash flows, all that sort of stuff becomes much more
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Speaker 1: uncertain So it's really bad for consumption, it's bad for investment,
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Speaker 1: it's pretty much bad for everything. And therefore it feeds
9:38
Speaker 1: into credit markets, bond markets, market stock markets. Basically they
9:42
Speaker 1: all have to have a higher risk premium to take
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Speaker 1: account of this extra uncertainty because of the extra volatility.
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Speaker 1: So it's not a good environment at all for asset prices.
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Speaker 1: And you know, as I say, I don't really think
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Speaker 1: inflation looked like it was coming off. It was still elevated, remember,
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Speaker 1: and I think it was going to come back in
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Speaker 1: a way. But this of course has just accelerated it. Right,
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Speaker 1: what's happening again in the middle least, which never really went away.
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Speaker 1: And I was looking at this earlier as well when
10:11
Speaker 1: it comes to food prices, So we kind of dodged
10:13
Speaker 1: a bullet. Yeah, it came to food prices because because
10:16
Speaker 1: people thought, you know, there's a lot of fertilizer ingredients
10:20
Speaker 1: if you like, come through the Gulf, have come from
10:22
Speaker 1: the Gulf where they travel through the straight from mouse
10:25
Speaker 1: and you did see a sharp rally in some of
10:27
Speaker 1: the stuff, is like uria and ammonia. But it came
10:29
Speaker 1: back down really sharply, and that was partly good fortune.
10:33
Speaker 1: Really you had like high inventories already. China I think
10:36
Speaker 1: released a lot of uria supply into the market, so
10:39
Speaker 1: kind of everything went in the right direction. But we
10:42
Speaker 1: might not be so lucky this time around, right because
10:44
Speaker 1: you know, inventories aren't as high anymore. I don't know
10:47
Speaker 1: if China has as much uria can offer back into
10:49
Speaker 1: the market. So this nitrogen and phosphate fertilized actually fosstate fertilized.
10:53
Speaker 1: It is already elevated. It remained elevated because self uric acid,
10:58
Speaker 1: it's big. Fifty percent of sulfur comes through the strait,
11:02
Speaker 1: so you've already got a bit of a bottleneck there,
11:04
Speaker 1: and that could spread to this nitrogen fertilizer and then yeah,
11:07
Speaker 1: then you've got food, a food problem on your hands
11:09
Speaker 1: as well.
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Speaker 2: And basically all of these things are a stagflationary they
11:27
Speaker 2: fundamentally because you've got oil and food costs, so the
11:32
Speaker 2: cost of your needs that's going up. That means you'll
11:34
Speaker 2: have less money to spend on points, and that just
11:37
Speaker 2: makes life harder for everyone, including I guess central bankers.
11:43
Speaker 2: I mean, we're not talking. We don't talk. We kind
11:45
Speaker 2: of share tips directly on here, but in terms of
11:46
Speaker 2: the kinds of things that investors can do, because obviously
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Speaker 2: points inflation is just bad for a fixed income. It's
11:54
Speaker 2: not ideal for cash. A lot of interest rate it's
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Speaker 2: keep up. Cash can sort of keep its head above
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Speaker 2: water a lot of time. Gold what's been going with gold?
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Speaker 2: Because I noticed that's the kind of was doing this
12:06
Speaker 2: thing where it was going down when oil was going
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Speaker 2: up for a while, and vice versa. But now this
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Speaker 2: seems to have been ticking back higher even low oil
12:14
Speaker 2: is up pretty much since basically just the last few days.
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Speaker 2: What are your thoughts on that.
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Speaker 1: Gold is an interesting one. I mean, obviously it ran
12:23
Speaker 1: up unsustainably, Yeah, which was really unfortunate. If you if
12:27
Speaker 1: you're kind of like like gold, to have it as
12:30
Speaker 1: like a portfolio hedge, that's kind of the worst thing
12:32
Speaker 1: you want to see because you know, the inevitable was
12:35
Speaker 1: going to happen. It was going to have to unravel
12:37
Speaker 1: to some extent, and which it did, and it's always
12:40
Speaker 1: it been gold as well, it's probably going to do
12:42
Speaker 1: so more than anyone kind of expected, so you kind
12:45
Speaker 1: of had to sit through all the kind of expected.
12:47
Speaker 1: In my mind anyway, noise of all, that's it. It's
12:50
Speaker 1: the end of the gold trade. You know, real rates
12:51
Speaker 1: are going up, so that's that's over. You're like, no,
12:54
Speaker 1: this is just unwinding the speculative fraud that we saw
12:57
Speaker 1: on the run up. And this is a good thing
12:59
Speaker 1: because I think a lot of kind of Johnny Come lately,
13:01
Speaker 1: if you like people that were you know, you know,
13:05
Speaker 1: maybe they were in bitcoin, you know, the sort of
13:07
Speaker 1: investors that are just looking for like a quick kind
13:10
Speaker 1: of what's going up, let's you know, momenting followers, and
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Speaker 1: I think a lot of that people went into the
13:14
Speaker 1: into the gold trade, and that obviously really threw it higher.
13:18
Speaker 1: And then as you say, what happened subsequently, is it
13:20
Speaker 1: then it started going opposite to oil prices basically because
13:24
Speaker 1: of tension in the Middle East, Right, So anytime that
13:28
Speaker 1: you know, central banks like Turkey were having to basically
13:31
Speaker 1: sell reserves, yeah, because they couldn't afford oil prices, right,
13:36
Speaker 1: Oils going up and they you know, they don't really
13:38
Speaker 1: have much of their own oil supply, so that and
13:41
Speaker 1: imagine Middle Eastern central banks were doing that. They don't
13:45
Speaker 1: have the same revenue income because they weren't able to
13:47
Speaker 1: export their product. So that that really exacerbated that. So
13:50
Speaker 1: maybe that's sort of coming to an end right now,
13:52
Speaker 1: and you'll get central banks or maybe starting to peter
13:54
Speaker 1: back in start buying again. But the fundamental rules like
13:58
Speaker 1: a reason sorry we're running gold never actually changed. All
14:01
Speaker 1: that change is the price price went up a lot
14:03
Speaker 1: and kind of back down to where it was where October,
14:06
Speaker 1: you know, not that long ago, and so kind of
14:09
Speaker 1: really it's one of these classic things, especially you know,
14:12
Speaker 1: when it comes to things like you own for the
14:14
Speaker 1: long term, you pay attention to the If you pay
14:18
Speaker 1: attention to the price every day, you're going to get
14:20
Speaker 1: thrown around, Like you know, typical value investor doesn't really
14:25
Speaker 1: tries not to pay too much attention to what the
14:27
Speaker 1: voting machine is saying, you know. And I think we're
14:31
Speaker 1: at that point now where it's kind of the decks
14:32
Speaker 1: have been cleared with gold. So I really I think
14:36
Speaker 1: it's got a much more fun like a solid base,
14:39
Speaker 1: if you like. For it's going to high and we're
14:41
Speaker 1: not going to see what we saw before, right because
14:43
Speaker 1: of that that that was kind of an unusual stet circumstances.
14:47
Speaker 1: But I do think it's setting up for like a
14:48
Speaker 1: longer term, more durable kind of kind of rally. I
14:51
Speaker 1: will say that it's not really just about inflation. I
14:53
Speaker 1: would say it's both edges of the distribution you're hedging
14:58
Speaker 1: with gold, So inflation and deflation. Okay, So in serious deflation,
15:02
Speaker 1: which we could get like if you have a credit
15:04
Speaker 1: bust like private credit maybe or something like that, you
15:07
Speaker 1: get a deflationary bust, and that's that's the tail risk.
15:10
Speaker 1: For sure. Gold actually should benefit in that situation because
15:14
Speaker 1: it's the very integrity the financial system itself. Yeah, it
15:18
Speaker 1: comes under question, and once again gold starts to look
15:21
Speaker 1: because it's orthogonal if you like, to the whole thing. Yeah,
15:23
Speaker 1: it starts to look attractive again. So I think I
15:26
Speaker 1: think there's an again all the fundamental reasons. I think
15:28
Speaker 1: that if you were onwing gold for the right reasons before,
15:30
Speaker 1: it's not just like a quick trade, you should still
15:33
Speaker 1: be in it today. Yeah.
15:34
Speaker 2: No, it makes a lot of sense. I say, yeah,
15:36
Speaker 2: gold is the is the monetary system kind of insurance
15:39
Speaker 2: trade than anything else. And it's interesting you brought up
15:43
Speaker 2: the insurance trade because just very quickly I thought one
15:46
Speaker 2: thing we should talk about is the hyper scaleers, because yes,
15:49
Speaker 2: they're the alphabet which is obviously Google's pair. They've been
15:52
Speaker 2: spending loads of money on AI infrastructure, and yes, the
15:56
Speaker 2: day they came out and said we might spend even
15:58
Speaker 2: more than we said we were going, they spend. And
16:01
Speaker 2: they also reported their very first I mean this really
16:04
Speaker 2: struck me as the very first negative free cash flow
16:07
Speaker 2: quarter since they've been listed in two thousand and four.
16:11
Speaker 2: And why of they are? I mean everybody kind of
16:12
Speaker 2: knew this was coming. But one of the arguments for why,
16:16
Speaker 2: at least I constantly are like, why this isn't like
16:18
Speaker 2: the dot com bubble, for example, is because these are
16:21
Speaker 2: really resilient companies with like tons of money and they're
16:24
Speaker 2: going to be able to spend forever and you know,
16:27
Speaker 2: it doesn't really matter. Yes, the valuations might be high
16:29
Speaker 2: or something, but this is not like dot Com two
16:32
Speaker 2: point zero. So we are this debt spreading out gradually
16:38
Speaker 2: through the system and various you know, share issuances and
16:41
Speaker 2: things like that coming out. Would would do you see
16:45
Speaker 2: happening next? Because this surely does look like the epicenter
16:50
Speaker 2: of what whatever bad thing happens next.
16:54
Speaker 1: It's a very good question, is it a bubble all
16:58
Speaker 1: that sort of stuff, Without getting into definitions of bubbles
17:02
Speaker 1: or not. It's one big bet, right, They're all betting
17:05
Speaker 1: on the fact that is an epoch changing time for computing,
17:10
Speaker 1: and it's going from the old paradigm of CPU driven computing,
17:16
Speaker 1: which is kind of deterministic, to non deterministic eye large
17:21
Speaker 1: language models GPU driven computing. So it's a very different
17:26
Speaker 1: type of computing, and it requires different chips obviously GPUs
17:30
Speaker 1: that are much more expensive and depreciate much faster and
17:34
Speaker 1: requires these vast data centers because these models are extremely
17:38
Speaker 1: hungry for computing bars. It really all comes down to
17:41
Speaker 1: that that's their bet. Whether they're right or not, nobody knows.
17:45
Speaker 1: You've got in the one extreme, you've got Elon Musk
17:47
Speaker 1: thinks we need to build them in space because will
17:49
Speaker 1: run out of literally you won't have enough space suitable
17:52
Speaker 1: space on Earth. And then you've got Zuckerberg at Meta
17:56
Speaker 1: actually saying he's maybe got too much because he's going
17:59
Speaker 1: to start renting out some clouds. So even though these
18:01
Speaker 1: guys can't agree, then we're agreed that we don't know.
18:05
Speaker 1: So it's one big bet. And so I suspect that
18:08
Speaker 1: whether the bet is ultimately provene right, which was kind
18:10
Speaker 1: of was with the tech thing, but it's path dependency, right,
18:14
Speaker 1: if there was you know, the price has got built
18:17
Speaker 1: up too much in the interim, and then there's a bust,
18:19
Speaker 1: even if you know you built whatever you built was
18:22
Speaker 1: actually the right amount or wasn't too much. If to
18:26
Speaker 1: get there, there's there's there's a kind of sinking, there's
18:29
Speaker 1: a bust or whatever. Then it is what it is, right,
18:31
Speaker 1: you're fifty percent decline in your portfolio. That's a problem, right,
18:35
Speaker 1: even if over the longer term you're right, And so
18:37
Speaker 1: I obviously don't know, but I think that the way
18:42
Speaker 1: that they're going about it is is extreme. And obviously
18:46
Speaker 1: the leverage that they're building up and their balance sheets
18:49
Speaker 1: is also extreme. That's undeniable. I mean the actual debt.
18:52
Speaker 1: They've got an un balance sheet of five hyperscal So
18:55
Speaker 1: I'm not inclining Apple here. It is about eight hundred
18:58
Speaker 1: billion dollars, right, which is which is obviously a lot
19:01
Speaker 1: because they used to have pretty much impregnable balance sheets
19:04
Speaker 1: and now they have less pregnable balance sheets. But off
19:08
Speaker 1: balance sheet, there's there's all these other things that they're
19:10
Speaker 1: getting up.
19:10
Speaker 2: To special purpose vehicles, it's all a little bit two
19:16
Speaker 2: and eighty.
19:17
Speaker 1: It's all the usual. Yeah, off balance so there's SPV structures,
19:21
Speaker 1: there's data center leases. Yeah, there's there's other liabilities. Essentially,
19:26
Speaker 1: don't sit on your balance sheet. And there was a
19:29
Speaker 1: report out yesterday, I think it was a nicky and
19:32
Speaker 1: Mike Burry retweeted it like that could be in the
19:35
Speaker 1: order of one point six trillion, right, So that's obviously
19:38
Speaker 1: you know double what So I suspect that, like, you know,
19:43
Speaker 1: even if it's all right done for the right reasons,
19:45
Speaker 1: they're actually a right about this demand for compute will
19:47
Speaker 1: be there. When you get finance involved, it can always
19:51
Speaker 1: go too far and you end up with more risks
19:54
Speaker 1: than Maybe people are completely priced properly pricing in and
19:58
Speaker 1: at some point prices have to retrack back to reality.
20:03
Speaker 1: So I could easily see that. And you know, given
20:05
Speaker 1: the earnings expectations for all these companies, certainly the memory
20:09
Speaker 1: companies and the other hardware companies are so high, there's
20:13
Speaker 1: no wriggle room and all the stuff I've been talking
20:15
Speaker 1: about with inflation and all the rest of it, and
20:17
Speaker 1: this inflation volatility, earnings are unlikely to survive that unscathed.
20:24
Speaker 1: So there seems to be so many kind of potential
20:26
Speaker 1: pitfalls ahead that for to get smooth sailing in the
20:31
Speaker 1: equity market. So my view right now is roughly I
20:33
Speaker 1: could easily see a ten to fifteen percent correction in
20:37
Speaker 1: US stocks. I don't see much much bigger than that
20:39
Speaker 1: right now, because recessions risk is still low. Now, if
20:42
Speaker 1: that suddenly changed, recession just suddenly became a lot more likely,
20:45
Speaker 1: then you have to factor in a potentially much deeper
20:48
Speaker 1: draw down because you often get the deepest draw downs
20:50
Speaker 1: and ecuities when there's a recession. In fact, all of them.
20:53
Speaker 1: I think the only example was in nineteen eighty seven
20:55
Speaker 1: where you had a massive draw down twenty five percent,
20:57
Speaker 1: but there was no recession. Otherwise, all the big drawdowns
21:01
Speaker 1: happen in recessions.
21:03
Speaker 2: So that's what we need to look out for. So
21:05
Speaker 2: it's it's a nasty correction unless we get a recession
21:09
Speaker 2: as well, which might happen because if other if oil
21:13
Speaker 2: prices keep squeezing everybody. Oh yeah, that's it's good is
21:19
Speaker 2: We always like to leave it on a cherry note
21:20
Speaker 2: here in the market Wrap, Merton talks money, so I
21:23
Speaker 2: think that's the idea we want to do it on.
21:25
Speaker 2: Thanks very much for coming in and joining us the day,
21:28
Speaker 2: not at all, thanks for having me, Thanks for listening
21:33
Speaker 2: this week's Merton Talks Money Markets rap. If you like
21:36
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Speaker 2: and be sure to follow me on extra Twitter at
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Speaker 2: Joined Underscore Stepic. This episode was produced by Summer, Sadie
21:45
Speaker 2: and Moses Andy. Questions and comments on this show and
21:47
Speaker 2: all the shows are always welcome our show email is
21:50
Speaker 2: Merton Money at bloombard dot net and special thanks to
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Speaker 2: Simon White