Preston Pysh (03:34):

And based on your CPI chart, we were talking earlier. The UK just posted, I think it was last week, they were double digits on their inflation print.

Joe Carlasare (03:46):

Yes, absolutely.

Preston Pysh (03:48):

What was the number? Was it 10 or 11% or something like that? It was way up there.

Joe Carlasare (03:53):

It was a monster number. I don’t have [inaudible 00:03:57]

Preston Pysh (03:57):

So what do you guys think this next print’s going to be? Because I’ll be honest with you, this last one at nine, I was a little surprised. I thought it was going to be lower. I’m looking at the spot commodities, the raw commodities and they’re falling through the floor, but it’s all the finished parts and the complex parts that seem to be driving these prices. The shortage of labor, it seems like that’s the thing that’s just allowing these CPI prints to keep running higher and higher. So are we going to see a higher print than 9.1 on this next go around? Because if we do, that’s going to be really ugly in the bond market, it’s going to sell off don’t you think? Or do you think [inaudible 00:04:45]

Joe Carlasare (04:45):

No.

Preston Pysh (04:47):

Okay. So you think it’s going to-

Joe Carlasare (04:49):

I think that the higher inflation stays for longer and will effectively convince the market the Fed is trapped, without losing all credibility they cannot pivot, they can’t pause. If they do, in many ways that would be disastrous. I think a pivot at this point right now-

Preston Pysh (05:10):

Oh yeah, it’d be disastrous.

Joe Carlasare (05:12):

I think if that happens Preston, I think you see long end yields explode, north of 5%. If they pivot right now, that should… Because that’s what you’re effectively seeing in Japan, they’re taking a total… Go ahead.

Preston Pysh (05:24):

Let’s define disastrous. Because people hear that and it can mean a whole lot of different things depending on which market you’re talking about. So you said long duration bonds are going to sell off like crazy, I agree. Equities, they’re going to go up right? If they pivot at this point.

Joe Carlasare (05:38):

I think the long duration bonds will sell off if they pivot right now without tackling inflation. They need to get inflation down otherwise inflation expectations longer out they’ll just say the Fed has no confidence, the market doesn’t believe they’re going to take inflation seriously. I think what you see right now, even in the movements of the tenure, you see, listen, we believe they’re committed, we believe they’re going to sack the economy, push us into a recession, do whatever they can to stop these high CPI prints. It may take a lot longer, but that’s what the long end is telling you, long end is telling you that eventually they will be successful, the forward expectations are telling you they’re going to be successful. It’s just a question of when, not really if. But if they pivot, oh man, that changes the entire ball game. So if you’re a fixed income investor, you’re not begging for a pivot right now.

Preston Pysh (06:29):

And so we don’t think, I think collectively as a group, we don’t think they’re going to pivot, we think that they’re going to continue to be pretty aggressive in their stance, right? Everyone’s nodding their heads. So let’s say the CPI does come in hot, similar to what we saw in the UK, do we just see the bond yield curve continue to invert between the long end and the short end? It just keeps getting more and more negative. Like the 10 to 2 year that we were talking about earlier, close to, what was it? -.45%

Joe Carlasare (06:59):

Could follow Canada down most inverted in history. Which makes sense, with the highest inflation expectations of the last 50 years, you’re probably going to have the most inverted curve in history for the United States [inaudible 00:07:09]

Jeff Ross (07:10):

I’ll throw it in there, it’ll stay inverted, but it’ll all rise higher though, too. So we’re going to see the two year yields go higher and the 10 year yields are going to… they’re still going to be inverted and severely inverted, but if we see inflation continue to come in hot, that’s basically the short end of the yield curve, the two years what I like to look at, they’re going to keep going up to give the fed permission to keep raising rates more. They’re like, oh shoot, this is sticky high inflation, you have to keep raising rates, you have to keep being more aggressive. So right now it’s sitting at 3.2% for the two year, 3.21% right now, the two year yield. If it comes in hot, I think it’ll [inaudible 00:07:47] and it’s going to go up to 3.6% and the 10 years are going to go from what are they, 2.75 right now, that’ll go [inaudible 00:07:54] and then it’ll go up to 3% or something like that. But its still going to be distorted and it’s still saying a recession is coming, it’s just saying the fed needs to keep tightening for longer. Does that make sense?

Preston Pysh (08:04):

Yeah.

Jeff Ross (08:04):

That’s how I read it.

Preston Pysh (08:05):

Yeah. Okay. So while we were talking there, because I said I was going to try to build the Canadian yield curve here while we were talking. So I did build it, let me share it. Let’s see here. Okay, so I don’t have it… I’m assuming you’re referencing the difference between the 10 year and the 2 year, Joe?

Joe Carlasare (08:27):

Yeah, that should be right.

Preston Pysh (08:29):

We can see here the 10 year, which is the lowest yield in Canada right now, 2.6%. The two year is at 3.2% for..

Jeff Ross (08:40):

[inaudible 00:08:40] 46.

Preston Pysh (08:40):

Yeah. It’s similar to the U.S’s spread, but evidently they haven’t had that-

Jeff Ross (08:47):

No, 56. 56 bips.

Preston Pysh (08:49):

So it is higher than the U.S, okay.

Joe Carlasare (08:52):

Yeah that’s it. 56 bips.

Jeff Ross (08:53):

Dang.

Joe Carlasare (08:54):

That’s a massive spread, right?

Preston Pysh (08:56):

Yeah. Wow, look at that, 1, 2, 3, 4. It’s completely inverted, fascinating stuff. Let’s put some of the charts away here, what are your thoughts on what’s happening in China with the real estate market? Any thoughts on that one?

Jeff Ross (09:13):

I just think was it unexpected? We all saw this coming from… It’s sort of like, we all saw what happened with COVID and the whole shutdown and then flooding people’s accounts with free money, we all knew what was coming after this. I feel like at China, they went through this decade of just massive real estate building, ghost towns, we all saw pictures of it. So at some point this comes [inaudible 00:09:37] at some point you have to pay the bills and they’re seeing it right now. So everything’s great when the markets are going up and the equities are going up into the right and liquidity is flowing freely and banks are lending, all that kind of stuff, and to Joe’s point when volatility is low. But when all of that shifts and you transition to contraction times and higher volatility and banks aren’t lending anymore, things get ugly. And that’s when you see who’s swimming naked, the tide just went out for the China real estate market. So that’s how I look at it, I think it’s inevitable, it’s going to get worse before it gets better as well.

Joe Carlasare (10:10):

I continually find China so hard to study and analyze just because their data is so questionable. It’s a black box, it’s really difficult and you never know what what’s manipulation, what’s modified numbers. Whether they’re trying to project an image to the world for some purpose or some economic reason or geopolitical reason as opposed to actually here’s what’s really going on in the economy.

Preston Pysh (10:35):

How about here in the U.S, real estate wise?

Joe Carlasare (10:40):

Obviously it’s pulled back a little bit, there’s a ton of metrics that show price cuts across the board and that’s not unexpected. The question for me though is, where’s the systemic risk? What transforms this from a garden variety correction or a mid cycle correction that some of the CNBC people keep pounding the desk on, to something systemic? And I’ve heard arguments, I’ve heard conjecture, I don’t know, maybe Jeff you got some data that really makes you bearish on real estate, I don’t know, I don’t see it.

Jeff Ross (11:12):

I’m not too worried about real estate, I think it’s clearly turned over already, it’s over the hump and prices are declining. I definitely don’t think we’re having another great financial crisis redo. We’re not going to have massive crashes and there’s not going to be a subprime mortgage crisis, banks aren’t going to collapse, all that kind of stuff. So I’m not really worried about real estate. To me, more of the concern that I watch is the sovereigns. I wonder about emerging market debt, what’s going to happen if the dollar continues to strengthen and these developing nations continue deeper and deeper into a recession and they just can’t pay back their debt and then they start to default, what happens then? Do we get contagion at that point? That’s what I’m kind watching for.

Joe Carlasare (11:57):

Can we talk about that for a second? Has the dollar put in a shorter intermediate term peak here?

Jeff Ross (12:03):

Has it? In the short term…

Preston Pysh (12:06):

And before you answer, I just put up my momentum chart on…

Jeff Ross (12:10):

The trend is your friend.

Joe Carlasare (12:11):

What’s the momentum chart say?

Jeff Ross (12:13):

It’s still going up, right?

Preston Pysh (12:14):

Oh yeah, it’s very green.

Joe Carlasare (12:16):

You got to pull up your momentum chart too on gasoline, we got to talk about that in a little bit.

Preston Pysh (12:20):

I can pull that up. I’ll build it, hold on.

Jeff Ross (12:24):

If the dollar gets up to 115, 120, which it certainly could, it’s going to just destroy some of these developed nations. I think the action is in the credit market, not to mention by the way, high yield debt. So there’s a lot of zombie companies out there that have been kind of floating along since 2009, 2010, that shouldn’t have continued floating along. At some point they have to pay the piper as well. I know we’ve talked about this, we went back and forth a little bit Joe, but I think some of those companies are not going to make it if they have to try to roll over debt. When we get deeper into this recession that’s what I get concerned about, that’s to me is what we could flip from just a mild recession to a very serious recession. I’m looking at high yield and more importantly, I’m looking at sovereign debt.

Preston Pysh (13:12):

Okay. Well Joe, what are your thoughts on the dollar, the chart that we’ve got up right now? You think it still has room to run? I think-

Joe Carlasare (13:18):

No, the stuff I look at says that we’ve put in the peak for the year.

Preston Pysh (13:23):

Really?

Joe Carlasare (13:23):

Next year we could go much… Yeah, I have my own indicators and things I look at, I think we’ve peaked. That does not mean we roll over, does not mean we go… Let me put it this way, when we were texting back and forth and I was telling you gasoline and oil had peaked, the exact same triggers are hitting right now on the dollar. So again, this does not mean roll over, it doesn’t mean that in the near term dollar’s going back to 50 or 60 or 70, they could roll that down to 99, 95, sitting there and consolidate for a while, but for the short term, I think the dollar’s peaked.

Preston Pysh (14:02):

Huh, that’s interesting.

Jeff Ross (14:04):

I don’t actually disagree with that by the way. If we do get this rally, this sort of risk-on rally for a while, that would suggest that the dollar is going to weaken. Because they tend to go hand in hand, the dollar weakens, risk assets tend to spike. But then when we head into the next recession and things get serious, then the dollar rips higher again.

Preston Pysh (14:23):

Even in the face of everything that’s happening over in Europe, because when I’m looking at what’s driving the DXY, so much of it is Japan and Europe. And when I’m looking at those two, I’m saying, they’re going to be way worse than the U.S. in the next six months. So the dollar keeps [inaudible 00:14:41]

Joe Carlasare (14:41):

Way worse how? Way worse in the terms of their economy?

Preston Pysh (14:45):

Yeah. Based on everything that’s happening, especially with the Ukraine situation. That’s the reason why I think the dollar keeps moving from here.

Joe Carlasare (14:55):

Yeah, you talked with [inaudible 00:15:01] about this, but I think that the move lower already, we’ve seen in the dollar, which is marginal at best right now, but I think it’s being driven by the anti-fragmentation tool. So you have that liquidity papering over some of the weakest parts of Europe, that’s coming in now. We’ve seen the ECB attempt to sort of have their cake and eat it too, now with being able to paper over some of the weaker parts of the country, excuse me, the EU, parts of Europe. So I think that that’s driving some of this movement you see, it’s easing some of the pressure on the most vulnerable countries.

Preston Pysh (15:33):

Yeah, I don’t know. That’s going to be an interesting one to see. I’m not sure that I completely agree with you on that one, Joe. Okay, I’m sharing the oil.

Joe Carlasare (15:43):

There you go.

Preston Pysh (15:44):

The oil chart here and you are right, in a text message you nailed the living heck out of this stuff. I’m still on a momentum, I’m still thinking it’s kind of green, but then this just triggered this past week that it turned red.

Joe Carlasare (16:00):

Explain that, what just triggered, what does that mean?

Preston Pysh (16:03):

This is just that average true range which is based off of the volatility of the oil chart. It was hanging in there, I wasn’t willing to say that I think it’s reversed, but I think it was Thursday last week or Friday last week that this finally went red. But yeah, you called it man in the text and I was like, yeah, I don’t know, we’ll see. And maybe, who knows, this is one metric, it could still turn aggressively upward, but I’m with you, I think that you’re in a negative trend there for oil now. And I don’t have any momentum indicators here on this, but, natural gas, diesel fuel and gasoline being displayed from basically the start of the year. And you can see all of them are off of their highs and kind of going sideways or down across the board, what are your thoughts on this, Joe?

Joe Carlasare (17:01):

Well, this just shows you… you go back and look at the last several recessions, you see the commodity prices peak first, then you see CPI peak and then several months thereafter we’re ended up in a recession. That’s the same sequence, it coincides with the growth expectation of the market. These things are rolling over first and they roll over before CPI, which, to the point we were talking about earlier, that can tell you that CPI could go for a little bit longer, even though the commodities are sort of your first warning sign that growth expectations are deteriorating moving into the next year, when inflation does peak and start to roll over, that’s when you can expect us to be very close to a recession. I know people say we’re in a recession now, but there’s other metrics that NBER looks at to use their definition.

Jeff Ross (17:50):

Can I jump in here? Based on that last oil chart you showed, just because I’ve tweeted this out a couple times, to Joe’s point, this recession is kind of following the textbook playbook of what recessions are supposed to do, based on what he was talking about. Commodities, when oil was up in the 120s in one 115-ish range, I was saying, what I’m watching for next is for oil to break. When oil breaks that’ll be the sign that we’ve started the next phase of the recession. And then I show pictures of what the recession looked like from 2007 through kind of 2009 phase, one of that recession was oil was ripping higher, commodities were going higher, people were concerned about inflation and stocks. And I like to look at the NASDAQ, so the queues were declining substantially, they got hit hard.

Jeff Ross (18:35):

Then what happened, phase two was when oil peaked and then finally broke, started coming down, that’s basically from early 2018 through kind of late 2018, there was like a six month swath right there where oil was breaking and stocks were rallying. They went up, found another local high and then another lower high, that was phase two. That’s what I think we’re in right now. We’re like, okay, I think inflation’s actually going to be under control, oil broke, the markets aren’t as concerned about inflation currently, we’re seeing equities rally, risk assets are rallying, that lasts for about six months or so, at least that’s what it did back then. And then phase three is when the floor drops out, basically oil… The people are like, oh crap, we’re actually headed into a serious recession. Oil drops out, equities dropped out and then it just got freaky ugly at that point. And that’s when the credit market seized up, all that other stuff happened.

Jeff Ross (19:24):

So I think it’s going to happen kind of the same this time too. I’m following the same sort of playbook. And that’s what makes me think we had that June 15th or mid-June low in risk assets, they started to rally, oil’s been falling. I think they could rally all the way up through maybe November, maybe December who knows. And then we get to that, oh, crap moment because we’re headed into a serious recession and then the floor drops out of everything. That’s the playbook I’m following right now and so far so good. I don’t know if you guys have any thoughts on that.

Joe Carlasare (19:52):

No, I think that’s spot on. The one thing I’ll add and I think it speaks to two points we’ve talked about so far, and I want to talk about with Jay, get his thoughts on these in particular. So I sent over Preston, I don’t know if you see these two charts back to back, maybe we can quickly show them. They both start with the title, infographic and this comes from JPMorgan Chase data that’s publicly available. First one, I think is…

Preston Pysh (20:18):

What’s the name of it again?

Joe Carlasare (20:20):

It starts out saying infographic, it says household pulse.

Preston Pysh (20:24):

Yeah, got it. Hold on here.

Joe Carlasare (20:25):

You got it?

Preston Pysh (20:26):

Yeah.

Joe Carlasare (20:26):

Pull up either one of them, it doesn’t matter which one, we can go through each one. So this is really kind of a mind bending chart when you dig into it. So what you’re seeing here is you’re seeing the percent change relative to 2019 pre pandemic in median weekly checking account balances by income quartile. So what this is effectively doing, each one of these lines, you’re showing the different quartiles of income and you’re trying to see how much is this different from 2019 pre pandemic when we had all the stimulus money flow into people’s accounts.

Joe Carlasare (20:58):

And the interesting thing about it for me is that, this is checking account data in real time from JPMorgan across all income quartiles. You see elevated weekly checking account balances, you’re doing it on a weekly basis on a rolling basis to see how much money do people actually have in their account to meet these higher CPI pressures. And you see consistently, they remain elevated. That message shows you that this is going to push CPI up for a longer time period and it’s going to potentially be sort of a delay to drain some of this liquidity, drain down these balances to where they have to come back to the 2019 level before you have that hard down, that I think many at least, are expecting in the equity market, in the real economy, in consumption generally.

Joe Carlasare (21:50):

So this is a fasting one. And then the second one, if you could pull that up quickly, this one is the actual median weekly checking count balances by age group. Same story here, given the stimulus checks, the child tax credit, a ton of cash is just sitting on people’s checking account balances, still has not found its way into the economy. Every age group, every demographic, 18 to 34, the seniors, they’re still sitting on that cash. They have not plowed it all into the stock market, it is not eroded, this data I think is the end of Q1 data, but they’ve posted similar charts even as late Q2 at the end of June, its still elevated.

Preston Pysh (22:29):

Do we think its because of their working capital accounts, that that’s the reason for this? And Jay, what was your question?

Jay Gould (22:36):

I was just going to say, Joe, in the last meeting, I thought you had some data or some survey or something that said that people were plowing the money into the markets.

Joe Carlasare (22:44):

Oh yeah, no. Portions of the money found its way into the market, I don’t think there’s any… I’m saying-

Jay Gould (22:49):

But by and large it’s been sitting in the bank. You can see the numbers are [inaudible 00:22:53]

Joe Carlasare (22:53):

Well, just look at the balances. Where does that come from? Okay, some of it’s stimulus, some of it’s the child tax credits that came through all of last year, but if you’re going through your daily life and you’re just a regular middle income guy and you are comparing what’s in your checking account right now to what it was in 2019, it’s elevated. Now you may not feel that because of inflation. I don’t know, what’s your thought?

Jay Gould (23:17):

I was just going to say, I think the Fed is probably keenly aware of this and I think that for them to create the demand destruction, they’re going to keep raising those rates so that they can get unemployment up. And I think they’re headed towards trying to increase the unemployment. So make people afraid at the bottom end of employment, that they may lose their jobs and actually have people lose their jobs. And that will hopefully curb inflation, that’s their game plan. So they’re going to keep getting aggressive.

Joe Carlasare (23:41):

So if Jeff’s right and I happen to be sympathetic of the same thing, if equity prices then go up higher [inaudible 00:23:51]

Jay Gould (23:51):

They won’t go higher when they start laying people off.

Joe Carlasare (23:55):

Correct. But we’re talking very near-

Jay Gould (23:57):

My point is they’re going to keep pushing on the gas pedal, the Fed, until that happens. They’re going to keep raising those rates aggressively, I think they’re going to get more aggressive. So he asked earlier what are they going to do? I think it’s 75 bips this time coming up, possibly a 100.

Joe Carlasare (24:12):

Think about how rough it’s going to be for Jerome Powell’s life if you get the S&P back to 45-4600,

Jay Gould (24:17):

He’s got to get aggressive, he’s got to be aggressive. If he’s trying to accomplish his goal. I personally don’t think that’s going to change it because I think you have supply chain issues and I really don’t think this plan is going to work, but we’ll see. But they’re going to keep at it. I mean, he literally said, they’re going to keep at it, I forget the exact words he used, but he said something along those lines.

Joe Carlasare (24:36):

What’s your take on this Preston, what do you think about this JPMorgan data?

Preston Pysh (24:42):

I think Jay’s point is valid in that maybe people are preparing a little bit for the storm coming, but then also I’m just thinking about if everybody’s costs are going up, if you’re a business and all your costs are going up, you got whatever your variable costs are, are more dynamic. You have to have a larger working capital cash account for that business in order to facilitate that variance that you’re now seeing. And so that’s the only thing I can hang my hat on when I’m looking at it.

Jay Gould (25:14):

Here’s what he said at the press conference. I actually took some notes on this. He commented, voiced concerns with high and rising inflation. It was all about inflation in the press conference as you may recall, determined to bring it down and they will tolerate a recession if that’s what’s needed to get the job done. Very hawkish. And then he also said another unusually large increase could be appropriate. I think they’re going to get aggressive and I think they’re pushing towards-

Preston Pysh (25:40):

It all comes down to the CPI print, if it comes in like the UK’s and it’s at 10%…

Jay Gould (25:45):

I don’t think it does come down to the CPI print, unless it drops dramatically, no, I think it’s about employment. I really think it’s about employment. CPI, it’s tied to it.

Preston Pysh (25:53):

It’s both.

Jay Gould (25:55):

Yeah, it’s both. But if it comes down slightly, I don’t think that matters, if it drops dramatically, I don’t see that happening…

Joe Carlasare (26:00):

To Jay’s point, he specifically mentioned how he’s fearful of a wage price spiral. He’s talked about balancing the labor market, he says it’s not a healthy thing to have two job openings for every employee. And that’ll give so much… I mean, it’s kind of amazing from a [inaudible 00:26:15] standpoint, it gives so much bargaining power to workers to say, no, screw you, I want more money. And that’s how you get really sustained high inflation.

Jay Gould (26:22):

He wants to see weakening in the job market, that the goal I think at this point. And when there’s too many open roles, wages rise quickly, which can make the economy… the inflation could get way worse then I think. So I think that’s what his goal is at this point, that’s what he’s focused on.

Preston Pysh (26:39):

Boy oh boy. The only thing we need now is for Jeff, Dr. Jeff, to talk about COVID. Whats your opinions on COVID Jeff?

Jay Gould (26:49):

Or monkey pox, tell us about monkey pox. It’s now a national emergency.

Jeff Ross (26:54):

It’s a national emergency, so be careful out there everybody.

Jay Gould (26:57):

That’s just [inaudible 00:26:59].

Preston Pysh (26:59):

Stop talking. Stop talking.

Jeff Ross (27:00):

We’re going to get shadow banned.

Preston Pysh (27:04):

It was a joke.

Jay Gould (27:06):

No, for real. No, no, no, no, no. It’s actually not a joke guys, because there are so many… We’re talking about charts and all this data, but the reality is, this is a narrative game.

Preston Pysh (27:15):

Oh lovely.

Jay Gould (27:16):

That’s what I think is happening and you’re setting up towards there’s so many potential risks that can take all these charts and throw it out the window. You have lockdowns in China, we have problems with inflation again with supply chain issues.

Preston Pysh (27:28):

When I’m looking at this current run that we’ve seen, this aggressive bid that we’ve had, I’m just worried any little bit of bad news is going to just immediately plug the recession into people’s heads. And they’re like, there’s no way this thing’s going higher, what in the world are we thinking? And then that’s [inaudible 00:27:47]

Joe Carlasare (27:47):

Like a raid of Mar-A-Lago, is that going to drive the [inaudible 00:27:50]

Preston Pysh (27:50):

Yeah, there you go.

Jay Gould (27:52):

It’s all about uncertainty, we’re living in times of uncertainty right now, which means you don’t know which way it’s going to go. So that’s where the market’s at. And there’s so many different contributing factors that could just change in a heartbeat. Look at Friday, Thursday was there a 33-34% chance of a 75 bips, was the survey in the market, and now it’s a 66% in one day. So, that’s where we’re living.

Preston Pysh (28:15):

How do you guys want to leave this? Do you guys want to…

Jay Gould (28:18):

Is anything positive?

Preston Pysh (28:19):

…make your call for the next quarter or you just want to leave it at this and then we don’t have to worry about whether you were right or wrong.

Jay Gould (28:26):

Lets do a call, yeah.

Jeff Ross (28:28):

I’ll just throw out what I’m doing for my client accounts and stuff is, I’m getting increasingly long because I think this rally has legs, I think it’s going to probably hold now, everybody keep in mind we’re recording this before we know the CPI numbers for July, so things can change quickly. But as of today I’m getting increasingly long, but I have tight trailing stops. Because at some point, the bottom’s going to drop out. That could be in a week or that could be in a month or it could be like three or four months from now, we just don’t know. And so I just say be very careful because there’s still extensive risk to the downside for most assets, risk assets, especially. So I think what we’re going to see, I love the chart earlier, we were talking about with the leverage in the system, there’s very low leverage in the system right now, which is fantastic. If you see those numbers starting to rise again and people starting to get giddy and like, “Hey, we got through this, the Fed did it, yay Powell, Jeff, Dr. [inaudible 00:29:31] was wrong, we’re going on to bigger and better things.” That’s when you should get scared, that’s when we’re probably getting set up for the floor to drop out.

Jeff Ross (29:39):

So just be careful out there, use trailing stops or just a dollar cost average through it, for Bitcoin, by the way, I’ll throw in my Bitcoin thoughts and then I’ll stop talking. It’s possible that 176 was the low for Bitcoin. And it’s possible that we get a slow grind higher from here. I think it’s undervalued right now, I think it’s very cheap. I think that the whole Terra Luna debacle and Celsius and Voyager, all that garbage, really pulled it down, that was a hard capitulation type event for Bitcoin. And so I think most of the badness got rung out of it at that point. If we do go into a deep recession again, I think that’s probably coming next year, maybe early 2023, it could tank again and it probably will tank again. So just be careful for that as well. But we could have a pretty nice rally into the end of this year. I’ve been saying since the beginning of the year, my price target at the end of 2022 was 50,000 and 1 penny and I’m still standing with that, I think it could happen,

Preston Pysh (30:38):

Joe?

Joe Carlasare (30:39):

So full disclosure, I am massively long through options here. The long bond, into 2024, I expect to get to zero or negative rates on the 10 year at some point next year, I’m not going to try and time it, I’ve been accumulating for last month or so just a huge position and it’s moved in my favor, which I’m very happy about. And I expect long end yields to decline from here and 10 year to find a bid. I think bonds will be the trade of second half rather than play the vanity trade of the equity market I’m just going to do my thing. I think Jeff could absolutely be right, in fact if you had to ask me, gun to my head, my base case expectation, I think equities go higher from here. I think at a minimum we’re visiting the 44 or 4500 on the S&P, I think NASDAQ goes higher, I think Bitcoin goes higher.

Joe Carlasare (31:29):

But again, it’s in some ways a sucker’s rally because everything is deteriorating. And if you’re going to try and time that, good luck, I don’t want to mess with that. I’d rather do what I’m comfortable with, which is, I think that the flight-to-safety trade will be alive next year as the real economy deteriorates. So just in terms of disclosure, that’s where I’m at in terms of positioning. Obviously I don’t trade Bitcoin, I never trade Bitcoin, I think it’s stupid to do that. I accumulate when it’s cheap, I bought dips below 20K this time, I’m going to continue to buy, probably up and down again. I’ll buy higher levels from now and I’ll buy at lower levels from now. Hopefully we get cheaper prices, but I suspect Jeff’s probably going to be right, at least for the near term, I think Bitcoin is going to at least go higher for a little bit here.

Joe Carlasare (32:10):

In terms of what I’m looking at in the Bitcoin broader market, I’m very eagerly waiting these reports we’re going to get from the executive order. Keep in mind we had that executive order that came down, that commissioned various studies and reports to come and be fed to the president to foster legislation in Congress. Those are going to come in the early part of September. So that’s going to be a lot of headlines, a lot of news and reaction about here’s what the president’s commission found, here’s what treasury found, here’s what various different department of energy found. It could be bad, it could be FUD, just be aware it’s coming in the first part of September there. And also you can expect, I think some election sort of dynamics coming into play, I think the student loan thing is going to happen.

Joe Carlasare (32:55):

And also one thing, I think I texted you about this Preston, and I think it’s going to be fascinating to see if we get a boon to equities from this, you had that “Inflation Reduction Act” that got passed, which they had that excise tax on capital gains, but it doesn’t come into effect until January 1st, 2023. So are there companies out there that are thinking, hey, maybe if we front load some of our buybacks and do it this quarter and into Q4 because we don’t want to pay the excess tax on buybacks that starts January 1st, 2023, we want to do it now, front load it, I think that could be another boon to equity. So it could again contribute to the risk-on rally. So I don’t want to be bearish here, I don’t want to be bullish bonds, but I think it could roll over, nobody knows.

Preston Pysh (33:40):

So I threw up the 30 year here Joe, and you can see we got down, we’re basically at 1% there for a little bit in 2020. So you’re thinking in the coming year to year and a half, we’re going to go lower than 1% on the 30 year?

Joe Carlasare (34:02):

Absolutely.

Preston Pysh (34:04):

All right, there you go, you heard it here first folks. And just so people know, that line on the top of this chart is the 40 year trend line that it had never punched through. You can see it tipped through there a little bit, these are weekly bars that we’re looking at, it punched through it there a little bit on this last bidding, this last sell off and now it’s starting the bid. So we’ll see if Joe’s trade there continues to work out.

Joe Carlasare (34:32):

And do you see that… Go back for one second real quick. Preston, I’m sorry. You just got to look at this structurally. Okay, look what happened. I want to talk about QE. QE buying massive amounts of bonds, look at the WIC, what does that WIC tell you right there? That WIC is total dysfunction and lack of liquidity in the treasury market. And what happens when they’re buying tons of bonds? When they’re buying tons of bonds, they stabilize it and yields go higher. You’re an astute bond market observer, explain to me how QE right there in terms of “buying bonds is driving the yields higher” there.

Preston Pysh (35:11):

Well, I don’t see the QE actions as happening in sequence. It’s out of phase. The implications are out of phase from what you’re seeing in yields.

Joe Carlasare (35:24):

What do you mean by that?

Preston Pysh (35:25):

So when you have an out of phase action, if I’m pushing a swing and I’m pushing, then the swing is in phase with my pushes, but in some types of frequencies, when you’re pushing or you’re trying to move it with a vector to the left, it actually is moving the exact opposite. But that doesn’t mean that they’re not correlated.

Joe Carlasare (35:45):

Well yields bottom right when QE begins.

Preston Pysh (35:48):

Yeah.

Joe Carlasare (35:50):

That’s what we know from this chart, that’s that WIC. The yields bottom right when QE begins.

Preston Pysh (35:55):

Yeah. You got to realize, over a long period of time, there are actions stepping in and clawing these instruments out of the market on a net basis on a long time horizon. I don’t care what anybody says, if you’re removing securities out of the market, you’re playing with the pricing mechanism of what they are. If you go to a market and I’m pulling oranges out of the inventory that’s there, it doesn’t necessarily have an immediate impact. But if you keep doing that on a long enough net basis, it’s going to impact the price. The reason they’re making that action, to assume that it has now implication, and this is the question I posed to Jeff Snider is, well then why are they doing anything? If it does nothing, then why do they keep doing it over and over and over again?

Joe Carlasare (36:49):

The answer is, to change the market psychology, to make them think that everything’s backstopping with liquidity.

Preston Pysh (36:59):

Give me a break. I’m with Lynn. So when you look at the M2, that’s what’s being realized in the market, but as they continue to adjust… Because what they’re playing with is the duration. As you’re constantly stepping into the market and doing these activities, what you’re doing is you’re messing with the duration, because they’re swapping something out that’s yielding 5% for 30 years and you’re swapping it out for something that yields 4% at 30 years. And as you keep doing that, you’re driving the duration down to nothing at nothing percent. So to suggest that it’s psychology, I just don’t buy that for a second, it’s mathematics and it’s mathematics over a long period of time. That not an in phase where you see the implications while it’s being input, it’s an out of phase implications of the input. But you know what, I value the difference in opinion, I just think that as you do this over a long enough period of time, you’re truly messing with the duration, you’re messing with the discount rates, you’re messing with the cost of capital. And there’s a reason that we all think UBI is going to happen, it’s because you’ve completely jacked the pricing mechanism of reality, of the price of everything. That’s why UBI has to happen. Next.

Joe Carlasare (38:24):

To be continued.

Preston Pysh (38:24):

That’s why yield curve control has to happen. Jay.

Joe Carlasare (38:31):

Well, with that said…

Jay Gould (38:34):

You’ve just said it all. I think, like I said earlier, it comes down to, the Fed’s going to be looking at inflation and employment data, mostly employment data, but they’re tied together obviously. So I think that’s what you got to keep looking at. Inflation is rising, it continues to rise every month, I would just look at that, oil prices like we did, look at the earnings calls, look at what these companies are saying, look what happened today with Nvidia, just keep listening to what’s happening in the market as it relates to their guidance. And that’ll kind of give you some guidance as to where you think things are going. Facebook just reported their first revenue decline as a public company recently ever.

Preston Pysh (39:08):

They are the absolute worst. I’m sorry, I don’t like to usually… I cannot stand that company. They’re just-

Jay Gould (39:16):

You’re going to see more of this stuff. And so as you see that the markets are just deteriorating. So I don’t see anything positive here, I hear you, there’s potentially a bull run that’s happening right now, we have to get past 4200, 4500 and we’ll see what happens.

Preston Pysh (39:35):

Is it a bull run or is it a bounce?

Jay Gould (39:37):

Well really, it’s a bull trap, or a bear trap rather. It’s a bear trap.

Preston Pysh (39:41):

And you guys all agree with that, right?

Joe Carlasare (39:44):

I don’t think [inaudible 00:39:46] Sorry Jeff.

Jeff Ross (39:46):

Its all semantics, right.

Jay Gould (39:48):

So it seems like there’s more things to the downside, I don’t see what can surprise us to the upside, I’m missing that, I don’t know what that is. That makes us going through a bull market and we just take off from here for the next [inaudible 00:39:58].

Joe Carlasare (39:58):

What about CPI declining rapidly?

Jay Gould (40:00):

Why would that happen?

Joe Carlasare (40:01):

Oh, so you think CPIs going to remain persistently high through next year?

Jay Gould (40:05):

Oh the next year.

Joe Carlasare (40:07):

Well if that’s true, we’re not going into a recession.

Jay Gould (40:09):

You put words in my mouth, I didn’t say all of next year. You’re talking about to the end of this year for the next few months. Right? So markets don’t go straight up or down, so I don’t think we’re going to see from this point… First of all, I’m not so sure that June was it 14th or so was the bottom, could be, but I’m not so sure about that. And so we have this run happening right now and the data points that I was just commenting on, which is inflation and obviously employment, the employment data that we see from ADP numbers that come out as well as the economic data that we get released, that’s driving everything I think. And that’s whats going to drive… And obviously that’s driving the Fed. The Fed’s going to drive the interest rates, the interest rates go up and the fed fund rates, then company’s going to start getting cautious about their cost to capital and they’re going to start laying people off. And that’s what the Fed’s pushing for, I think. And so that hasn’t happened yet. And when that starts to happen, that’s when the markets will roll and that’ll [inaudible 00:41:03]

Jeff Ross (41:03):

Ill throw in again my two cents here, is that I think the markets officially don’t really care about inflation as much anymore. I think the inflation part of the dissent of equities and risk assets has already taken place. And I think the rally continues until people finally get concerned about the recession being serious. That’s how I’m viewing that, I think it’s a psychology game right now.

Jay Gould (41:28):

And why would you get concerned about the recession?

Jeff Ross (41:29):

Because they’re going to see that things are actually really seriously bad and we’re going to be in a worldwide recession and it’s going to be inarguable by winter or late fall. People are going to start to look ahead and be like, oh crap, it’s really ugly out there. We’re not just-

Jay Gould (41:47):

I’m asking you what the cause of that recession will be.

Jeff Ross (41:50):

So negative GDP and to your point-

Jay Gould (41:52):

And what is that? That’s what I’m asking, getting to the root of it, what is causing the GDP to contract?

Jeff Ross (41:56):

So unemployment is very low, so people are going to start getting fired, companies are going to quit hiring, people are going to be out on their [inaudible 00:42:02]

Jay Gould (42:01):

Bingo. Federal reserve rising the rates, lay people off, then they have to pivot because there’s too many people getting let off too fast and that’s when it reverses the other way. We’re not [inaudible 00:42:10]

Jeff Ross (42:11):

I’m just trying to put a timeframe on everything. So that’s kind of how I see this all planned out, is a few more months of a rally because people think we’re kind of over it, the inflation was a big deal, not that big of a deal anymore. We’re getting through this, could just be a mid cycle, a little dip, we’re pulling out of it. And then people are like, again, sorry for the foul language, oh crap, we’re actually heading into it more serious recession.

Jay Gould (42:32):

I think I’ve been good on this episode.

Preston Pysh (42:35):

Really good, really good.

Jay Gould (42:38):

No, but I think for this year, I don’t know how far we go up, but we can continue to rise, to your point, but there’s so many negative narrative things that I was talking about that could make it just pull back down again and test that bottom, we’ll get closer. So I’m not so sure that we’re ripping all the way to the top here and testing the all time highs or anything like that. So yeah, I don’t know. I’m still worried, I’m pretty worried about [inaudible 00:43:03]

Joe Carlasare (43:03):

[inaudible 00:43:03] Everybody want to use negative on all time highs this year, SPY for example, on the S&P 500.

Jay Gould (43:08):

S&P, I don’t think that’s happening. I think there’s too many…. Listen, could it happen, Joe? Absolutely. But there’s too many economic data points that people are looking at and other factors that are… Like every week they… I will say this, the market is pushing up any chance it can. Any chance it can go up, it goes up, but any chance that it can go down, which keeps happening every few weeks, it bang, it just drops again. And so that’s the thing that we’re faced with, is that there’s too many potential things that could push to market down, but it does want to push, to your point Joe, the market is very optimistic and it wants to rally and it’s trying to, but there’s too many things that keep getting thrown at it.

Preston Pysh (43:42):

I’m of the opinion that this is getting exhausted, this current balance that we’re in, I don’t think it has too much more to go.

Jay Gould (43:52):

We’re at that level now, 4,200 roughly.

Preston Pysh (43:55):

I think it could run for another couple weeks at most and then it’s going to maybe start rolling over is my base case. But similar to Jay, Hey, I’m not an absolutist on anything, I’m all looking in probabilities. I’m saying, Hey, could it go further? Of course. But the bigger momentum trend for me is that we’re seeing a bounce and it’s about to fizzle out.

Jay Gould (44:21):

Joe, do you think we can through 42?

Preston Pysh (44:24):

In the fourth quarter [inaudible 00:44:24]

Joe Carlasare (44:24):

Yeah. So let me give you the probabilities in my mind. I think we break through 42, I think that the real water line for me is this 44-4300 area. I’ll tell you this, put it this way, if we get above 4400, we’re going into all time highs, that’s the line in the sand.

Jay Gould (44:41):

Let me say this to you. I’m watching the market the last few days, so today you see the market, it’s pushing. The Nvidia thing comes out and the market dips, it’s one freaking company that’s clearly tied to Bitcoin mining. Come on, everybody knows that. And yet the market starts to pull back off of that. It’s looking for a reason to pull back, it’s also looking for a reason to go up. It’s trying to sit in a channel right now. If it breaks above 4,200, all bets are off, it could really start to rally. And this is a resistance level that it’s got to get through, I think.

Joe Carlasare (45:08):

We’re on the same page. The chart, the difference in this current rally at bear… because we had that bear trap in March. We didn’t get to these charts, but I’ll just briefly summarize them. Look at the VIX, look where the VIX is breaking, a level week, we had this higher low, higher low, higher low, basically through October of last year, we’ve always put in these higher lows. Look at high yields, look at credit spreads, they’re telling you the risk on trade is here. And even look at… we didn’t get to the [inaudible 00:45:41] SPY, but this is what you see, you see the return to the leadership, you see technologies outperforming, QQQS are outperforming SPY, this could be a bear trap, but once you start to break really good levels, the market’s going to get completely bullish again, they’re going to think the Fed’s got everything in control and you can’t discount the potential with a passive flow for [inaudible 00:46:01] all time highest.

Joe Carlasare (46:02):

And it could really mess people up, it could be like the Bitcoin chart guys. You get back up to 4800, 4900 and people think, okay, the coast is clear and that’s the second double top. And it rolls over.

Jay Gould (46:12):

If it’s not something that’s an exogenous event like China lockdown or something like that, they will send their Fed officials, other Fed officials out to make comments, whether it’s the one out of San Francisco or Cleveland or whatever, they also leak this stuff out, I think, to pull the markets back. That’s what I think they’re trying do. So as it starts the rally, I think they’re going to try to do whatever they can, if it’s not some other [inaudible 00:46:35] even that they can’t control. But most of [inaudible 00:46:37] are just going to be things they don’t have to do.

Joe Carlasare (46:38):

That’s what I said earlier. It’s going to be Jerome Powell’s worst nightmare if he still has CPI really high. And at the same time you’ve got this issue of a higher SPY, you’ve got higher asset prices, they’ll be like, whoa, how high do we have to hike rates to tank the market? That’s what he’s going to be thinking.

Jay Gould (46:56):

Was it Mester? I have something here. She told the Washington post… lets see how they do this. So she says that it would be inappropriate to cry victory too early, I guess to your point here, and risk letting high inflation become entrenched. We need to see really compelling evidence that inflation is moving down. And in my view, we haven’t seen that yet. She’s just putting that word out there to try to pull the market back a little bit, oh wait a second the Fed’s not so happy about where things are at. So when the market starts to rally, they’re just going to come out with their comments.

Joe Carlasare (47:25):

Yep.

Jay Gould (47:27):

Put pressure on.

Preston Pysh (47:27):

Joe real fast…

Jay Gould (47:28):

Good luck.

Preston Pysh (47:29):

I put up the VIX-

Jay Gould (47:30):

You might be right.

Preston Pysh (47:32):

I put up the VIX and also the MOVE. And it seems like the MOVE is the bigger index for the credit markets, for the volatility in the credit markets. It seems like that’s the bigger story than necessarily the equity volatility.

Joe Carlasare (47:49):

Absolutely.

Preston Pysh (47:50):

Which would make sense based off of this current setup with inflation and all the treasuries being at the yields are at, I’m sorry to interrupt you, go ahead.

Joe Carlasare (48:00):

No, no you got it, this move in the bond market was historic in the first half this year, bonds absolutely got smoked, its a four standard deviation move. There have been few times in history, absent a credit crisis, where you’ve had this kind of turmoil in the bottom market. And the higher elevated move, the takeaway from that is that you’re on the fastest rate hiking cycle in history, we’ve never moved this quickly. The fact that we’re talking about 75 and a 100 basis point hikes, I think is something that speaks to the volatility and uncertainty in the market. And that’s why you’d expect an elevated move, because it’s responding to, is Nick Timiraos of The Wall Street Journal going to leak next week that we’re hiking 150 basis points and surprise everybody. That’s kind of how they’re doing policy now. And I think it’s… and good luck bond traders in the short run because the volatility is through the roof.

Jay Gould (48:51):

But on top of that, we then have a print of 528,000 jobs. So that’s a surprise, did you guess that that would happen?

Joe Carlasare (49:00):

No. No.

Jay Gould (49:01):

Right, that’s what I’m saying. It’s crazy what’s happening right now.

Joe Carlasare (49:05):

It’s a weird economy, it’s just weird. You get so many cross currents and you can make the argument… I think if you pull back, just zoom out like we say, the clear trend is that the sugar high from the fiscal stimulus is wearing off every week. Every month that goes by credit conditions are tightening and the economy is decelerating. So you have to believe that eventually the fundamentals follow that. Now, how long that takes, the timing of that, whether the market perceives indications or indicators on a daily basis incorrectly, it gets really tough, timing’s everything. But I think you can expect that this isn’t going to get resolved by the end of the year, this is a 2023 story. So when we were having those podcasts earlier in the year, I’m like, this can take time, this is not something where the credit markets can implode this summer, it might be a 2023 story, emerging markets blowing up might be a 2023 story, I think that’s what you’re seeing.

Preston Pysh (49:59):

Guys, let’s wrap it up there. Go around the horn, Jeff, tell people where they can find you, anything else you want to highlight? We’ll have it all in the show notes, but go ahead.

Jeff Ross (50:09):

Sure. So I’m most regularly on Twitter, my handle is @VailshireCap. If you guys want to learn more about how I invest, I obviously do things pretty differently than most financial planners and investment advisors, you can look up my website vailshire.com, or you if you’re curious my services shoot me an email, info@vailshire.com.

Preston Pysh (50:28):

Joe?

Joe Carlasare (50:29):

Yeah, Joe Carlasare, I’m @JoeCarlasare on Twitter. I’m a commercial litigator with law offices of SmithAmundsen. Hanging out on Twitter, easiest way place to find me, always shoot me at DM if you have a question and thanks for the follows.

Preston Pysh (50:43):

Jay.

Jay Gould (50:45):

For the next four weeks, you can find me in [inaudible 00:50:47] in seaside Heights on my boat with my jet skis and my kids.

Preston Pysh (50:50):

Nice.

Jay Gould (50:53):

No, you can find me @jaygould on Twitter. And most of my handles on most social media is the same. Angel investor, so if you’re a startup in Bitcoin or otherwise hit me up if you’re a tech founder.

Preston Pysh (51:04):

I think people can tell during these discussions that we are truly trying to figure it out for ourselves. We’re not trying to push any one narrative, we’re just truly trying to find reality and what we think, where the probabilities are going to be kind of moving forward and what a blast doing this with you guys every quarter. I just can’t thank you enough for making time and to spend basically the whole evening here, just kind of hashing it out, I always have a blast during this. So guys, thanks so much for making time.

Jay Gould (51:37):

Thanks for having us Preston.

Joe Carlasare (51:37):

Yeah, thanks Preston.

Preston Pysh (51:39):

If you guys enjoyed this conversation, be sure to follow the show on whatever podcast application you use. Just search for, We Study Billionaires, the Bitcoin specific shows come out every Wednesday, and I’d love to have you as a regular listener. If you enjoyed the show or you learned something new or you found it valuable, if you can leave a review, we would really appreciate that. And it’s something that helps others find the interview in the search algorithm. So anything you can do to help out with a review, we would just greatly appreciate. And with that, thanks for listening. And I’ll catch you again next week.

Outro (52:11):

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