00:00Mark, very good morning to you. So we're busy waiting for non-farm payrolls, one and a half
00:05non-farm payrolls, looking at U.S. futures a little bit weaker, weighing on sentiment for
00:09tech here in Europe as well. What do you make of the price action heading into the important
00:14data print? It's been very disappointing price action and I think this kind of choppy price
00:22action with a negative bent is going to be the dynamic for the festive period. I don't think
00:27it's so much about the jobs data. I think the jobs data today is a great one for short-term
00:33traders, but it's one we'll quickly move on from. The dynamic here is that on one hand,
00:38Powell has emphasized that he thinks that the prior jobs data has overstated the health of the
00:43jobs market, therefore increasing the scrutiny and the importance of these numbers given the
00:47data vacuum before. On the flip side, he also warned that this one's vulnerable to some kind
00:51of technical distortions, which means people get very excited in the short term and then a week
00:56later, if it doesn't suit their view, they'll move on from it. The price action is very negative
01:00out there and I think that's going to remain the case until we see the full pain play through on the
01:05digital asset treasury companies, which are really at the lows. And that's what's really weighing on
01:09the crypto sector and in turn that's weighing on the retail sentiment, which is then hurting the
01:14big AI names or the more meme-focused AI names as well.
01:19So Mark, putting the possibility of a Santa rally aside for now,
01:22are we going to see more record highs for stocks in 2026?
01:28Absolutely. I mean, I remain very bullish for 2026. I think, you know, we've got everything in
01:35the mix for stocks to make significant more gains in the first part of the year. I think we've got
01:41the Fed providing easy monetary policy. We've got fiscal stimulus coming from the US, from China,
01:47from Japan, from Europe, kind of in all directions. We've got growth still holding up largely OK.
01:53We've got just a massive AI bubble. We're in the inflation stage of the bubble. So that's a positive
01:58factor at the moment. It won't be forever, but it is very much so at the moment. Earnings still
02:03holding up good. And because that AI capex spending, that's helping the economy, even though it's a K
02:08economy. It's helping that kind of spending out there. So I think global stocks go much higher in
02:12the first half of next year. But I think it's too early to get excited about looking at that just
02:16yet. I think we've got some choppiness for the next couple of weeks. OK, and thinking about that
02:21choppiness, Mark, might some of that come from shifting expectations about rate cuts? I mean,
02:25how convinced are you we get more rate cuts from the Fed? The market sometimes pricing in one,
02:29sometimes two. But this is into an AI boom. And it's in the context of much more of a hawkish tilt
02:36coming through from other global central banks. Yeah, absolutely. I think one of the themes of
02:42the last month or two is the idea that most central banks have are kind of at the end of
02:48their cutting cycle and going to be shifting towards hikes. And we've seen that all around
02:52the world. And that's kind of changing the dynamic everywhere. We're in a world where people have a
02:57nagging feeling. It's not the dominant theme, but a nagging feeling that there are fiscal threats
03:02everywhere. And too many developed market economies are over indebted. And therefore,
03:07that creep higher in yields from these central banks moving more hawkish. The idea that inflation
03:11is sticky. It's a global theme. And that's why even though we've seen 175 basis points of rate cuts
03:16the last couple of years, we see 10 year yields higher than they were two years ago. And I think
03:20that's the dynamic we've got for 2026.
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