What if AI cuts jobs faster than rates can fall?

Markets have a habit of choosing the path that hurts the most people, and this week they proved it. We open with a jolt: CarMax plunges 24%, the CEO is shown the door, and used‑car demand looks like a classic pull‑forward that left a hole in today’s sales. From there, we follow the thread across the macro tapestry: consumer sentiment hovering near crisis lows, layoffs announced at a pace that clashes with payroll prints, and a tech slide that turns “AI capex” from dream to doubt in a heartbeat.

I break down how cobweb dynamics and inventory timing errors ripple from toothpaste to autos, why tariffs distorted the clock on purchases, and where the data is more theatre than truth. China’s export picture adds another twist: a bilateral surplus that widens even as shipments to the US shrink, exposing the difference between volume and value in a tariff world. We dig into the money plumbing too, because it’s no longer just M2. Offshore dollar creation rides on the collateral of investment portfolios, trade invoices, rehypothecated claims that shape and form money in ways the Fed doesn’t fully map.

For investors, the practical edge is structure and levels. Options now mediate the market’s mood, turning volatility into potential income when used with care. Covered calls on quality after big drops can pay you to wait, but path risk matters. We map Meta’s gap fill and key Fibonacci retracements, and consider Oracle’s round‑trip as a reminder that narratives can outrun cash flows. The stance is clear: acknowledge the pullback, respect the signs of strain, and build selective shopping lists rather than chasing every bounce. Let the market pay you for patience, and let price confirm when the turn is real.

If this breakdown helps you navigate the noise, follow the show, share it with a friend who trades the headlines, and leave a quick review. Tell me what level you’re watching next. I’ll bring the charts.

Chapters

• 0:00 There is a sound distortion at the start
• 6:00 Social Media, Pairs Trades, And CarMax
• 12:30 CarMax Collapse, CEO Exit, And Pull‑Forward Demand
• 19:30 Cobweb Theory, Inventories, And Cycles
• 27:30 Michigan Sentiment Hits Crisis Levels
• 35:30 Job Cuts Stats Versus ADP Noise
• 44:00 Media Hype, Bad Stats, And Signal
• 50:00 China Exports, Tariffs, And Trade Surplus Twist
• 58:00 Tech Selloff, Market Psychology, And Pain
• 1:06:00 Oracle, AI Capex, And Valuation Whiplash

Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 0:02

The recording has started. It is 9 33. It is not Pi. Not American Pi. But perhaps Pi will reveal itself. Perhaps we will navigate a route through Pi. What am I talking about? Maybe Fibonacci. I love Fibonacci. We have not done enough Fibonacci. We've done no Fibonacci. Ladies Ladies and gentlemen. It is I, Hugh Hendry, the Astro Capitalist, in the wonderful Zen bars. 9.34 on a Friday night. They owed me I'd be I'd be at Bagatel. I'd be drinking tequila. But here I am. And I'm no longer in Blanc Blue, and maybe my voice is is quiet because I'm staying in the what I call I'm staying in the what I call the ghetto. It's it is not the luxury of of Blanc Blue. I have neighbors. Goldie, the 22-year-old blonde, beautiful Goldie, who is my villa manager. She's been staying here. And when I got back, oh my god, it was it was so clean. I thought I thought I was clean living, but clearly I'm I'm a slob just as much as every other guy. Now I think I I'm I'm on this this new concoction called StreamYard. And it's got fun things that we can do. Well, not we, not collectively. All we can do is I can talk, and maybe if I'm very lucky, you can listen. But apparently I can play. I can I can I can set us up. Oh my god, what happened to it? I had music, uh, it's letting me down. Why do they do these things? Because now it doesn't sound as if it's sound as if it's out of control, damn. But you know, I this was me meant to be. This is what happens, never. Uh there was this what is that Hollywood saying? Never share a stage with dogs, pets, animals, and kids. And then later on in the world of finance they added, never share a stage with Henry. Let's do the introduction. Where do you hear it? Isn't it blessed? Time for me to talk. Let's start, my brothers and sisters, let's start at the very beginning. Because it's a very good place to start. When you read, you begin with A B C the alphabet of love.

SPEAKER_00: 3:12

When you sing you begin with Dore Mi Do Re Mi Do Re Me.

SPEAKER_01: 3:20

Hmm, let's see if I can make this easier.

SPEAKER_00: 3:23

Do a deer, a female deer, re a drop.

SPEAKER_01: 3:31

Me! Let's make myself a long way to run. A needle pulling thread. La, a note to follow so tea, a drink, German bread.

SPEAKER_00: 3:46

That will bring us back to shut up. The sound of music. I that came on. I was driving a big car through the star via.

SPEAKER_01: 4:04

And I've got a I mean, I'm like a carnival. I have an external speaker that just boom, boom, boom, broadcasts in the vicinity. And it was normally it's kinda rock music, but today it was Dore Me, and I was like, I'm shading it with my brothers, my brothers and sisters. I do like this music. You don't find it indulgent. Um George Gammon. George Garmin. George Gammon and the economic theoretical theology, the theologian. Um, you know, it's odd like. Carl Marx. Carl Marx. Carl Max. I I was I'm learning new social media tools. I'm actually learning. Oh, it stopped. Goodbye. That's the end of the show. It was a quick one tonight. No, there's more to go. I've been talking for five minutes. I can't. I like so George was telling me how I should really be talking to girls. I'm getting it all wrong. Unlucky in love. That's not true. But he's also teaching me how you communicate, like social media is really like talking to pretty girls. I'm finding that fascinating. Anyway, so I was setting up this piece. You know, he's got lots of followers, him and Brent Johnson. Not like little old me. And I'm like, hey, and and you know, last weekend he was here. And actually it reminds me of a story of my my one of my kids had to do an essay. A legal essay. Can't quite remember the context. And my ex-wife, an advocate, an advocate, a lawyer, assisted and kind of partly wrote the essay. And the kid's score was uh-uh. Actually, I've got more. How do you read it? Uh-uh. I don't know. You know, the kid's essay.

unknown: 6:32

What?

SPEAKER_01: 6:39

I got a very forgive me, this is gonna be even more annoying than usual. I have to entertain myself. Yeah, it got it got really poor marks. Actually, it wasn't one of the kids, it was her sister who was doing an MBA and had to write a Lego essay. Why? What was I talking about that took me into that? Yes, George Gowan. And and so um, I'm like, hey, what apparently I was like a hedge fund guru. Still, maybe it can be sometimes I can say intelligent things. And he was telling me about his Carmax and he was doing a Paris trade, and we discussed this. And I spent the weekend saying, George, oh my god, you're such an amateur, you're the king of social media, but that no one does pairs trading because you know, risk reduction, and therefore, if we ever get kind of two or three Z-score type days where the SP might might fall 10%, you probably find that your karma, you well, your long something is down 10%, not good, and your short something which will probably rally, really not good. So I was beseeching him to to cover. And uh and then I decided to put a little kind of thread out there on on Twitter, like saying, Oh, George, you know, you're an amateur, I'm an expert. And and George is on WhatsApp and he's he's laughing his head off. He's like, oog, oog, huh, huh, huh, huh? Check the monitor, check the monitor. I'm like, what monitor? My heart monitor? Hold on a second. Heart heart monitor? I was like, I was thinking. I'm loving this, hold on a second. I was like, George, what he's like, yeah, no, no. That is the sound of a Death Star. Carl Car Max was joining Karl Max Marx in the cemetery. Oh my god, pull it together. Stop having fun. Car CarMax, the the United States, the largest retailer of secondhand automobiles. It tumbled. Tumbled? I don't think tumbled is the right adjective. It collapsed 24% on Thursday. Closing around about$30. The shares are now down to their lowest level in 15 years. And no mercy, no mercy was shown to the the long-standing chief executive. None. Bill Bill Nash Nash got slashed. Been with the company for 30 years, departure immediate. They're like, slinger hook and get out of here. Also, they they kicked him off the board. They're mighty beeved. Company, it was it's it's now cut its earnings per share, who cares, to somewhere between 18 and 36 cents, which means like we don't know. And the Wall Street consensus had been for 69, 69, no more. What's going on? The same store sales. Now expected to decline, let's call it 10%. Where analysts have been like, yeah, they've been kind of bearish, they've been looking for like a two and a half, three percent decline. Nope, 10, maybe 12. What's going on? And this can get that there is relevance in this. A pull forward, a poo. We borrowed, we put our we we reached out and we pulled the future into today over consumption. I mean, we're doing that with debt. We're pooling the debt capacity of the American economy over decades, and we're pooling it very selfishly, and we're consuming that debt on lots of crazy shit. Pooling from the future. And what was happening was tariffs, tariffs, price. I mean cars I am amazed. Cars are really I have no idea about real life. Cars are really, really expensive. And if you can hear a guggle, I'm I'm not gargling, but I'm drinking I'm drinking water out of a glass glass bottle. Yeah, like a shitty car, co a shitty brand new car cost you like what, 20, 25,000? A kind of run-of-the-mill family car, 40,000? And they all look the same. But put a tariff on top of that, and that's a big deal. So people were buying cars and buying secondhand cars ahead of the tariffs. And so that confused things. And actually, so uh this is this is something which is spontaneous. Uh the cobweb theater uh running a business is kind of complicated. Even the guys who manufacture toothpaste, toothpaste, I'm brush, I'm pretending to brush my teeth to camera toothpaste. I mean, you don't there are no variable lags or booms and busts in toothpaste. And yet, they tell me the manufacturing, the ordering and the inventory, it's a complex task. Back in the day when I worked in Edinburgh, of course, we had an investment in at the time you could invest directly in independent whiskey companies. And you were essentially, they were wonderful, but they were time capsules, you know, whiskey heritage, and it's 10 years old. But think of the complexity and the demand curve, not the curve, but the the theory there is the cobweb or the hog cycle, that you're having to make decisions in the here and now for a product that you're going to sell in 10 years' time. And I'm saying to you that the guy who sells toothpaste, I mean, he's he's not struggling, but it's still a science to know how much to produce the week before, the month before. Never mind 10 years before. And and of course, they're you're constantly getting it wrong, but with these huge time lags, which then create huge price effects. And so we saw a lot of that in Carmax, and it's very much at the root of the debate on the US economy. This is a macro show. We are supposed, we, the royal, we, me, you, no, me, I'm supposed to tell you about uh the day's economic data. What did we get? We got the Michigan, the consumer sentiment index, and and actually is for November. Remember, remember the 7th of November or the 8th by the time you hear this, Michigan consumer was down at 50. There's a decimal point in there, but you would round it to 50. And that was down from again, we're gonna round the decimal point up a little bit. So to fifth, it was 54 in October. So 54 to 50. Consensus had been 53. Now, to make this more realistic to those of you listening in your earbuds, the long-term average of the index is around 85. And it hit, I mean, is this true? So it hit a record low of 50 in June 22 amid fears of the pandemic inflation. So it's pretty much on consumer sentiment, it is on crisis levels. I am looking at the University of Michigan consumer sentiment, and I am looking at it from you know me, I like long, look looking at lot as much data as possible. And it it was 50 back in 1980 recession. Very high interest rates, 16% interest rates. Oh, sentiment would stink. The highest reading ever was in the yeah, in the year leading up to uh the the tech bubble, uh, the end of the century, 1990, party, like it's 1999. It's as high as it's been, and it got to 110. Interesting, the comparisons today. You know, you can't read an investment report on tech without the comparison of AI and data centers to global crossing and dark fiber, the exuberance of the stock market. Well, the exuberance of the stock market was being disseminated and passed through to consumer sentiment. You know, the consumer is 70% of the economy. So you had a double positive whammy. Stocks were up, the economy was up, people felt good. What you can categorically say today is I mean, my god, stocks had been on it, stocks have been everywhere, but they've been mostly up, but they did fall. I mean, Nasdaq at one point this year was down 20% on the year, the SP was down about over 10% on the year, and then the SP was up 15%, and the Nasdaq was up 20%, so we've had huge movements, but the consumer sentiment is on his ass. It's a really, really interesting, remarkable uh chart. I mean, it's not a remarkable chart, but it I didn't know that. I did not know that. We are the levels of consumer sentiment that we saw during the exceptional period of the COVID. In fact, we're below those levels. I mean, you could argue we just kept going. Like COVID wasn't good for sentiment. The government spending or the the inflation that it generated wasn't good for sentiment. And we're at levels that you associate with 2008-2009. We're at levels you associate in fact we're lower than than the savings and loan crisis in 1990. And we're even lower when than when the Fed was at 16% interest rates in 1980. So that's quite a that's actually that I think that calls for an intervention. Heartbeat of I know what you're saying, I become James James Kramer and Jimmy Kramer, but you know, but consumer sentiment. I mean, I'm like I'm sorry. Do you know that expression, Nick La Police? Again, we're we're jumping off. Do you know the biggest rap band, fantastic rap rap band, in France? I do not, do not, do not say that's an oxymoron, because there's some amazing uh French rap. But the biggest band, like going back the last 30 years, is NTM. And NTM is an acronym only in France. Do you know what NTM stands for? The French people are like, yeah. Would you like to know? You're like, no, okay, I'm gonna tell you. And again, hold on a second.

SPEAKER_00: 19:27

It means Nik Nick Niktapolit. What Nik? Oh Nik Tamer.

SPEAKER_01: 19:36

Nique Tamer and Nik means fuck. So it's fuck your mother is the name. You can't make this shit up, is the name of the biggest rap band in France. And actually it's quite a jovial term. Like, if you if something, if he like rather than go high five to your friend, you go hey Nique Tamer. I use it all the time, Nick Tamer, motherfucker. Nick Tamer, how did we get oh yeah, we were talking about consumer sentiment. Oh, and uh La Haine, my kid Cameron, he has La Haine. He's a tattoo there. Brilliant, amazing, amazing movie that they created the star of Vincent Cassell. And they have a lot of like they have a lot of in the the suburbs and you know those riots and pitchback and the cops and the you know the youth, the youth of today. Is there tequila in my water? When I was younger, um look it up, the musical youth, the youth of today, the oh, and they had this great song called Pass the Duchy on the Left Hand Side. And there was this program. I mean, there are about I think I think 40% of the podcast is called up by the citizens of London. So you'll know what I'm talking about. There was a kid's show called Blue Peter, very, very respectable. And they kind of they taught you origami and it was boring as hell, but they had the the little black London kids come on and go, pass the duty on the left hand side. And and it was the Caribbean tradition where you've got to pass the pass the joint to your neighbor on the left hand side and the blue peter. The white folk were not aware of it. If they were aware of it. Stop it, stop it, stop it, stop it. Right. What was I talking about? Oh my god. So consumer sentiment. Uh notes. I do have notes. Come on, notes. Note to self stop being a friggin' idiot. But yeah, Michigan consumer sentiment.

SPEAKER_00: 21:54

Mmm. Mmm. Mmm.

SPEAKER_01: 21:57

Then I think this shows why my what is my recurring message? Don't press your nose too close to the window to look at the economic data. Take your time, ignore a lot of it. Just keep your eye on trend and price. Yesterday, all my troubles seem so far away. Because we had the ADP private uh sector report. I now have neighbors and they're talking. I hope it's not messing with the soundtrack. I'll have to call the cops. ADP was celebrated. Today we got the Fletcher Gray report. Challenger, Fletcher, I don't know. It's all grey. And it reported 153,000 announced job cuts. ADP, on the other hand, we s was celebrated. And it was demonstrating 42,000 new private sector jobs. I'm hesitating. If you could see me. If you could see me, you would you would sp out I'm like, this is crazy. So what's going on? And which should we trust? I don't trust any of them, but if I was to say something close to being sensible, the Challenger report is kind of more indicative of where we're going because it's announced cuts, it's gross ADP's net. So Challenger is going through all public announcements from companies, and actually Challenger is also picking up public sector uh data. And so some of these announced layoffs might not happen. But right now, on the basis of uh discourse from companies, the intention is to lose 153,000. Now again, statistics, damn damn, damn. Statistics. So and this title is called Challenger, Grey and Christmas. Challenger, Grey and Christmas? Why'd you put Christmas in there? I know. Those job cuts were 183% greater than the month before. Or September. Is this for November or October? I think it may be October. Now here's the bit. It was the the worst. Let me get this right. It was October. And it was the worst in terms of biggest job cut announcement for the month of October in the Challenger Grey and Christmas series since October 2003. But here's how they mess with statistics. The headline. Job layoffs start to two decade high. It's not true. Pants on fire. I mean, I did say to you the other day that job cuts look as if they're running at just under a million job cuts. And that's up like I want to say 50% from the year before. But you've got to go back to 2023, not 2003. 2023 no 2020, that impact year of the pandemic. And there it was over 2 million. You see statistics. I read something. Does this happen to you? Sometimes I st I stumble into what do they call it? I'm now um I'm moving my screen. Yeah. Actually, not notifications, you go to home and there are two choices, for you or following. And sometimes I it defaults for you. No, for you is crazy universe. Lots of really, really fucking crazy things come up on that, on that teleprompter. Following, I've had a chance to kind of like even it out. There was actually about a six-month period where I didn't really I didn't know what had happened, and I was stuck on for you, and I was just getting crazy, crazy batshit. Alex Carp type stuff. But anyway, so I was on this default, and this thing came up about I think it was rosemary, you know, the the herb, the herb. I really like rosemary on a on a potato. I like it in a bush. Rosemary is one of my favorite bushes. Why am I laughing when I say bush? Black forest gâteau. Sorry where that came from. Oh yeah, a rosemary. And it was saying, wow, the the science has discovered that the this the odor of rosemary it it sets off something biologically in in the blood, which you know when we're getting older, like we are not getting we're we're not as good at like Pac-Man and eating up the sentient. Sentient means the dead cells and they hang around better and stuff like that. It was like rosemary would would help as you begin you'd be getting good cleansing, especially for the brain. It's gonna keep you smarter. And they had a a study which revealed that students who were sniffing the rosemary were outperforming on memory tasks. I thought, and it was like, hey, maybe you should you should have you have a stick. I mean, you should have a stick of rosemary with you all the time, why not? I mean, I mean I you can I I think I'm gonna do that. Maybe in the next show I'll have a stick of rosemary. Still coughing. Now I've got dogs. Hold on, hang on. Hold on. Can you I if you can hear the sound of dogs, then you understand that we need I don't know if you're hearing that, but I have shot the dogs. Anyway, so I put into the the thinking, the pro aspect, the pro part of Chat GPT, and it's like, uh, is this real? I don't know. And you know, so it cannot calculate compound annual growth rates, but it's like this is a crock of shit. First of all, the sample size of the study is 144 like elementary school kids, and you're trying to like extrapolate to the 8 billion people in the world. I mean, 144 people! Like, why don't you try 100,000 people? And and then this is so I got into this code de sac because of the media's use of the challenger data, which was statistically the worst or the largest amount of layoffs since 2003. But the headline was the worst layoffs in 20 years. No. And they did the same trick. here and I think they do this. I'm pretty sure this is a technique, social media technique, when you've got some stupid you know, like chocolate makes you I mean you know I was gonna say makes you uh it's healthy. I mean I I do buy into that dark chocolate. Uh but even then I've I've stopped eating old chocolate. But yeah the the technique for getting attention is you put out an announcement and you make a factual error which then gets copied by someone else and and gets tweeted or whatever gets disseminated. And so the error becomes the focal point. And that's what happened here. It was saying there was a the study revealed a 71 71% improvement in memory but actually what had happened was the report when it was sent out the first newspaper to report on it said the report was a 7.1% 7.1 but it was reported by the first newspaper there was a typo and I bet you they were paid for the typo supposition by me evil supposition you you kinda underhand and you give the newspaper a potovan is the French say a bribe and they they take 7.1 and they make a mistake and it becomes 71 and then no one corrects it. Just shocking what happens anyway we are I'm now into 30 minutes. This has to be done in an hour so I didn't think I was going to be singing to you tonight we've done consumer sentiment we've done jobs oh yes the the exports China's exports in October China's export figures they disappointed tariffs again they would they this time last year they were they were exceeding expectations and now they're disappointed and it shouldn't be a very great surprise but you know markets need drama and the practitioners in the economics field are useless. October Chinese exports contracted they fell 1.1% year over year the expectation was modest growth is the expectation modest growth why was it modest growth and then the other challenge and I can't get to the bottom of this so they contracted 1.1% is that volume or is that volume time times price? I think you know it's volume so like is it the nominal value or is it the the number of units? I think it's the nominal value. And when you consider the tariffs ranging from 25 to 140% on Chinese products direct to the US economy since the what's it called Independence Day or whatever April 5th that's a big deal because it should be up if the volume was the same and you were paying like a tariff of 25% it should be up a lot but instead it's actually down one 1% if anyone's got the answer to that let me know I cannot I think I'm right there but I'm I cannot say hand on heart absolutely exports I wrote the uh the Chinese export figures that was globally and they were the weakest in eight months and I believe I think it was exports to the US actually sh shrank for the first time in about 18 months was that U I'm a bit confused what I'm saying there but I did read somewhere I wrote I I I I don't like I like writing little cryptic things. But I did write Chinese exports shrank for the first time in about 18 months exports to the US they did plunge 25% year over year. Again if that's volume times price that's a huge decline. But here's a twist so again did you read this this is this is breaking news there was a breaking news asset where is it drum roll applause heartbeat more sounds breaking news I'm sure I saw breaking news breaking news I can't see breaking news but I do see no breaking news don't see it what would break news sound like don't know this breaking news yeah so I was saying to you that Chinese exports to the US down a lot down a lot my friends down 25% year over year. But the American Chinese or China's trade balance with the US obviously it's the trade surplus exports decline 25% the trade surplus goes up goes up is that I mean it doesn't go up a lot like the Chinese are like you want to fuck with us we're gonna fuck with you so they cut back on soya beans and the like I mean they're tough cookies anyway so that's data. I think we can do this in in under an hour pretty sure we can that's 40 minutes stocks are falling tech's falling what's the front page of the of the commie pink financial times tech stocks suffer worse week since April after 800 billion I mean I'm surprised they didn't say after a trillion dollar AI sell-off and again I think I was suggesting to you that the pernicious pernicious pernicious nature of stocks stocks are mean stocks are mean the systems mean stocks will travel in the direction what do people say of least resistance? No stocks will go in the direction which causes the greatest consternation amongst the most which is to say stocks will go to the point which pisses off the most number of market participants. That's where they go time and time again they go there and they go how are you feeling we discussed that the other day I was likening the pool the periodic pullback in stock prices pulling back mean reverting and stocks rise the but it's a mean reversion mean reverting upward price series but they revert and the reverse is very emotional and it converts faith into denial and this show is all about trying to help you with that tough journey and I would it was just the other day Wednesday and I was saying to you S B was down 10% going into April on the year. And then it was up between somewhere between 10 and 15% so kind of 25% off the lows NASDAQ had a 40% reversal to the upside and we were the it and it pulled the one year which is the tortoise the slow moving creature was kind of up 12 13 1415 depending on the index and of course the spot price which is the hair which runs very fast was was up here and so the real danger of a 20% 25% pullback we're seeing that now did I one of the charts I saw was Oracle Oracle has round tripped it got that great was it AI AI was it chat GPT that signed them that deal and I'm I was watching the all in YouTube podcast show and and they had that I don't know what was it called Brad Setzer the one who wrote the open letter to Meta saying hey you know you want to get better you want to you want to like actually run the company seriously and and he he he picked he managed to capture a great buying opportunity and and he he got the mind of Zuckerberg or he got lucky same thing in this business. But I'd missed that he he'd been on a on a show during the week with Sam Altman I have said I do know there's something about Sam I don't like there's something about the night about that man. And anyway the investor who's actually has a big lump of stock in ChatGPT and and would ideally like to own more of it he asked a very relevant question like Sam can you just explain to the wider world how a business with actual revenue of$13 billion is signing deals for capital expenditure of$1.5 trillion dollars. That's one and a half million millions when the revenue is$13,000 million. 1.5 million millions is the capex they're signing and and Altman was just nasty nasty and and and people are smart on Wall Street and they're like why is he nasty? Why is he prickly what is what's what's in his head he's having a bad he's having a bad day I've got to tell you I was having a really bad day a really really bad day I I'm telling you I I I left I moved house last night and I have a I have three cleaning ladies from Colombia and they do not speak English or French just Spanish and and they are devoid of intelligence. Now it's not their role to be intelligent but when I say devoid I mean we're talking about almost zero intelligence so I go home now one of my passions now if you're listening to this you won't get this but one of my passions is my glasses I I have about 12 pairs of glasses sunglasses must be about$15 to$20,000 worth of glasses and they were all out of their cases at Blanc Bleu. But you would surmise that the ladies in packing my luggage would have put the glasses in the case in a bag and everything would be fine and dandy they did not they took all of my glasses and they put it in a bag and that bag got lost. So I spent most of last night and most of today thinking that my like my my identity me what it is with the glasses is I look like my mother I have my mother's eyes being very honest with you and my my mother died just under two years ago but she I wish it was a blessing because she's had dementia and so you see that the awful awful awful decline she used to wear glasses but then she didn't wear glasses and I would see those eyes those dead eyes and I could see me and anyway my I don't know I'd been wearing glasses well before she got dementia so I was not a happy chappie and I was heavens I mean they're getting fired don't tell but they are getting fired and and you know I was talking about the blonde the goldy the 22 year old turns out she had them they were in the fridge anyway I got my glasses back so that was a bad day. What was Sam's bad day we don't know but that didn't help with the sentiment in technology socks and again Oracle interesting chart trader Mike I met with him in Eder Rock he sent me a message gorgeous girl the waitress what's her name I was like oh my dear he's like she's asking after you where are you I'll be there I'm coming I'm coming and you know oh my god I was talking she is so beautiful and she was like well and she wasn't happy with me so I was in another bar writing notes for these shows the select bar select and this dream girl came up and said she was very familiar with talking away and I had no idea who she was because she was like wearing a bikini whatever and um and um so one of the problems is I know she knows me and I know that I know her and I want to kind of you know ask her on a date for a coffee or whatever but she knows that I know her and so I should know if she has a boyfriend. It's complicated you see this is why I need George Gammon the Car Max short seller extraordinaire anyway I was talking with Mike Trader Mike and Friday is when he's everything's expiring like stocks crash people panic Mike rents the chaos with covered calls and so I mean he's got one position riot and it's a special set so he he just knows it so well so this is not a great great great company but he he's a kind of a horse whisperer he's the algo whisperer he knows where in the in the range the algos push the price higher and lower and he just he writes he writes his calls on on on the appropriate points in that cycle and it's it's got very credible active investors who are pushing to change it from the Bitcoin miner to data center. But that'll take a while and so Bitcoin data centers we are talking about a humongous amount of volatility which is to say the options because volatility is the principal component of options the what what is that extrinsic extrinsic the you know when it's so volatile that the so it's not whether the options in the money at the money out of the money is like between now and that period the end the expiration period if it's very volatile then the uncertainty is so great. So if I am an options writer I protect myself by making it very very expensive to cover being risky and volatile. Now remember Mike's selling the very very expensive he's selling the options and so it's the beginning of his week if you will today and he has amassed an enormous position once more. I mean so he he he had been he he he breathes he inhales he exhales the acid breath we haven't done that will save you from the the shipping news but the natural evolution of markets when markets are when markets or some of his stocks have become excruciatingly weak then being excruciatingly weak so they've fallen a lot then he is more willing to to underwrite the downside risk the more they've fallen the more he's like yeah okay I'll come in here I don't I was thinking about Solano Solano being down about 40% and he's like no okay and and and salt the two times leverage so being down the best part of 80 and he's like okay I mean if it falls another 20 that's like 90% and I'll I'll buy it anyway so I'll take that risk. Anyway with riot Bitcoin miner into data centers etter is part of this if nothing happens and it goes sideways or it goes up he's gonna make five and a half percent income in a week I wish I'd done this earlier I'm gonna write it in what if I if I ask it then it'll bust my recording but what is I don't know why I am asking okay I'm gonna ask you see who get get the number faster and I bet your number will be better than mine my chat GPT number but what is five and a half per percent per week and you annualized return okay boom boom boom boom boom actually let's let's make some noise what have you got that is one thousand five hundred and thirty six percent maybe maybe that's an hallucination but five and a half percent weekly if you can compound it five and a half percent weekly your annual return is going to be enormous I can see why Kramer got tedious and very annoying with these things so so five and a half percent a week is a hell of a lot but Mike's like I'm not I'm not sure he he's he is contemplative and ro and and reflecting on where does the market go from here like everyone else so there's an interesting is there at any point there but these markets seem different these markets have changed these markets have evolved these markets are frankly much better um we've always had if you will automatic stabilizers greed and fear Nasdaq went from being down 20% to up 20% on the year a 40% move in April five months and people start getting fearful an enlightening position and arguably sell would get seller and prices reverse NASDAQ being down 20% people get greedy the riot the the special sit that Mike's playing the 5.5% is like I'm kind of getting greedy so what I want to say is it's not just price declines it's not just like the price earnings ratio gets gets lower the dividend yield gets higher the uh the valuation becomes a compelling talking piece it is actually that with the preponderance of of trading that's being conducted through options there are some amazing opportun potential opportunities lucrative opportunities that emerge when prices fall a lot in very volatile areas but here's where it is hard so the oracles of in the substack I'm gonna I'll do the essay of this and push up the charts and Oracle looks intriguing but remember one of the caveats of Mike's great strategy is he will buy outstanding world class companies so that there's a caveat there are not many of them and Oracle is arguably one I have no argument with that but then he goes on to say that a fallen 60% and Oracle certainly has and it's just reversed some of the blow of craziness from that last deal. So he's not coming in to do that deal we were discussing doing that with Bitcoin maybe you know and he was going to tell me he didn't come back to me I would suspect you're probably looking at three percent by doing covered calls and I would say three percent so let's put have you have you got the answer yet? What is three percent per week annualized return put that in I think we've got to do the we gotta do the drum again three hundred and thirty six percent sounds about right but how much of being able to get about three percent per week how much maybe that protects you if Bitcoin goes from it was actually up today from 102 what if it goes down to 80 are you a buyer at 80 or are you going to be a buyer at 60? You see that's these are the the deliberations and they are interesting deliberations I want to wrap in the next uh five minutes if I don't rap I am going to be screaming at myself okay the didn't we talk about fractals? Yeah so one of the other ones is meta looking at my notes meta meta meta meta meta so meta this year following in the footsteps of Nasdaq being a principal component of the movement in Nasdaq went from 480 in April up to 800 I mean wow like that's what over a trillion dollars of market valuation expansion and today it's 600 because the kid is just pumping he's like he he's he's got it he's got the he's got the the fever and his capex is enormous and there's a lot of kind of funky off balance sheet opaque financing special purpose vehicles things that bring back fears of other periods of excess and so it's been dumped and 600 so when you have so I want you to think of meta being climbing climbing a spiral staircase to heaven and sometimes the ascent to heaven you come across obstacles and you have to take a few steps back can you can you hear me because I'm back I'm okay I'm back to the computer. You have to take a few of those steps back before you start climbing the rotating rotunda to heaven Fibonacci retracement lines are those steps back and they're a fascination they're kind of groovy it's nature and it's crowd psychology is it pop culture or pop pop goes the weasel but those steps they're particular levels fractals and these fractals work so you can put these charts in these patterns doesn't matter if it's yearly monthly tick data hourly data you'll get these patterns and is it a placebo but traders are drawn to that and they will have trading orders congregating around these levels. So 61.2 is one of the the big Fibonacci and that's where Meta is trading having come down from 800 to 600 another fun thing is what I keep saying mind the gap Meta had a gap. Meta there was a news announcement and it was so damn exciting that the first stop print the day after was actually higher than the day before that you didn't have continuous price that there was this interruption and so if it closed at 520 the day before the first print was 525 as a gap gaps get filled especially if I buy them above and there was a gap a gap in May and the gap you don't need me to tell you the gap it got filled where was the gap so I'm just look I'm looking at it now me yeah the gap was around about 550 or so so you're up at you're at 800 some crazy supposed are buying it at 800 they're buying above the gap you're like come on not gonna go back all the way down there they did anyway I should have said so I'm conscious we're we're on the two minutes to the hour mark R Max consumer sentiment Chinese exports tariffs human trader behavior we know there's going to be a price hike as the tariff we ordered before and we poo we bring demand forward and we're now in a period of deficit we've can the economy is weaker because of that action and take one step back further the last three years Steve Merrin and the argument of we we we had we've had a change in political ideology very steep like a handbrake turn and one administration in America was saying hey come in get over the wall Oh, become a Democrat, vote for us. And unprecedented numbers came in and came in rapidly. And they were buying used cars. And then another administration said, get out of here. And these people I'm exaggerating, but they fled. They left everything behind. They left their apartments, their cars, their used cars. And at the same time, I was saying to you, this stock market is different. Everything evolves, it gets better. The options and then the notion you get drawdowns, but suddenly the temptation, the greed temptation, this is the point. Mike is an amazing investor. And he's getting greedy. But he's just a little bit weary about where we are. Why is he waiting? He's waiting because of these of the evolution of innovation in finance. And we discussed this then. Money. Inflation is a monetary phenomenon. But but what is money? And the Fed thinks it's M zero and M2. It thinks it's bank reserves, reserves captured within the jurisdiction of the United States economy. And as Michigan, as as the idiot, my my very I have all of my listeners are very smart, very clever, very endearing, very acid. But as he was pointing out, evolution in in money, why would you create dollars within the jurisdiction of the US and being and being under the jurisprudence of the Federal Reserve when you can do it offshore, free of sanction, you can leverage it as much as you wish. It's unregulated. It's very, very profitable. And we're creating more dollars that way. And it's dependent on so it's not on bank reserves, but it's on collateral. We talked about how stock portfolios can be collateral. You can pledge your portfolio and you'll be given credit. It might be 50 eggs of what you pledged. It might be five. And then we were discussing a new fondness for using invoices and trade invoices. And we we've seen a lot of trade. This generation is defined by trade, the immense emergent trade of China with the rest of the world. It's huge export trade with the United States. And it's like, well, hold on a second, let's facturize the invoices between the US importer and the Chinese exporter, or vice versa. That's collateral. And we'll create more money again. Trader Mike's thinking, and he's seeing the signs. UBS are closing not one fund, they're closing two funds. BlackRock are closing a credit fund. Regional banks are always kind of on the cusp of being needy. Because who would be a regional bank when I can be an international money center bank and I can be printing dollars offshore? Why would I be in Cincinnati? And they're kind of picking up strain. And then there's all sorts of acronyms coming out of the Federal Reserve and they're plumbing, and they're indicating strain. My instinct is I think where we are is a pullback. I and I can't see things rushing higher immediately. And I certainly would be looking for buying opportunities, but probably probably not rushing. And I'm listening to Trader Mike for the the smart ones which give me protection. That's where we are. And I wanted to close. I must play more music. Hold on a second. Um let's let me oh yeah. I know what I can do. I think it's time. I am gonna leave you, ladies and gentlemen. You'll be listening to this the weekend of the 8th and the 9th of November. And I truly, from the bottom of my heart, I hope you have one of the best weekends ever. I have clients staying in my house, and a couple are being married tomorrow. May it rain today. May it not rain on their parade, may it not rain on you. May your heart be full of joyful sunshine. And and and please allow me the indulgence of what is called the green sunny soft. Let me talk over it. Um we sp I spoke to you about feminine. I spoke to you about that spiraling staircase to heaven and the retracements, the steps backwards. I'm talking about pie. We're talking about something very dear to me. The infinite flirt with mathematics. Three spot one four one five nine. Do you know what? I've been thinking, but I want to get another two. I'm gonna get three spot one four one five nine. Maybe I'm gonna get it one more four. Tell me what I should get. Like maybe I should get it. Well should get it. Three split it between the arms. Maybe I'll put it down my arm. These digits, my fingers, I will digits of high tumbling into eternity. No pattern, no mercy. The ratio is the ratio of a circle, circumference to its diameter, circumference round and remote, and the diameter is the fastest as the crow flies from one end to the other. I this mathematical flirtation, the symbol the symbol of everything humans can measure, but yet we never fully grasp. Geometry waves probability heels. The fingerprint of rotation, the fingerprint of rhythm itself, eyes in the orbit of planets, the ripple of ponds, the bell curve, the scores of clouds. It's a whisper from the geometry of the universe, and it reminds me at least that perfection. Oh my god, perfection is endless. And us we only ever trace its shadow. Good night to you all. This is Hugh Hendry. I am the acid capitalist, and I am gonna have an amazing weekend.