00:00And we'll start with oil, shall we, because, as I say, we've got the geopolitical tensions around Russia and Venezuela kind of competing with the oversupply concerns.
00:09I wonder who wins over the next few months. What's the floor potentially for oil prices?
00:16Yeah, great to be with you, Lizzie. You know, in this time, that's not really a holiday quiet time in the markets or not yet.
00:25So, look, I think we, you know, it really depends on if the U.S. is serious about enforcement, not only about Venezuela, but also about Iran and Russia.
00:38Venezuela itself is less than 1 percent of global oil supplies, especially the sanctioned supplies that are going to China.
00:48But this is at a time where the Ukrainians are hitting Russian tankers, where the U.S. is sanctioning more Iranian vessels.
00:57And so if we were to see tightening of several sanctioned jurisdictions at the same time, that could definitely bring oil prices up and offset what would otherwise be a decline.
01:09You know, as for floors, my view is that I think if we sort of got below 50, it wouldn't stay.
01:16You know, so we're a long way from that now, but it wouldn't stay there.
01:20And that has a lot to do with the fact that China continues to add to its stockpiles.
01:30And we might well see others in that context. And at lower price points, yeah.
01:38Yeah. I mean, we were discussing with Aisha earlier, when does OPEC pivot to cuts?
01:42Yeah. And we might not see OPEC as a whole pivot to cut.
01:48I'm really watching Saudi Arabia, the UAE, the countries with the surplus capacity, whether they, you know, both what price they're willing to sell at and whether we might see some tempering.
02:01We already know they announced plans not to keep adding new supplies in the first quarter of next year.
02:09Right. Traditionally, a soft time in the oil markets.
02:13So I'd be watching also, you know, Kazakhstan has pledged to finally do its compensation cuts next year.
02:22You know, you know, you can tell I'm not I'm not too optimistic that they'll actually do that.
02:27But I do think in those 50, you know, in those sort of lower 50s or especially sub 50 range and the U.S. producers are price sensitive as well.
02:39But overall, the markets are going into 2026, expecting a pretty big glut.
02:46And we're waiting to see whether it will actually be as big as they anticipate.
02:52On the flip side, we've got gold hitting fresh records again this week on the geopolitics.
02:57I'm looking at it up nine tenths of a percent at $4,483 a troy ounce right now, Rachel.
03:05Is that rally going to continue into 2026? Yeah, I think the general trend will be upward.
03:12This is, you know, gold continues to be a way to play the weaker dollar, the lower U.S. rates.
03:20We might see some bumps along the way. It's rarely linear.
03:24But ultimately, I think we're seeing a number of institutional investors still looking to get into gold.
03:31And that might lift up some other metals, including including silver.
03:37So and we've definitely seen that gold as this sort of store of value really outpaces Bitcoin and other sort of other sort of digital assets in that way.
03:53So you don't think silver is overreaching here?
03:55Well, we'll see. I mean, I think both gold and silver look a little stretched for me in the short term.
04:05They've seen a big jump. But I think the structural driver is still supportive.
04:11And you mentioned the weak dollar. You don't see the dollar recovering in 2026.
04:15I think not. I think we're going to see weaker financial conditions, slightly softer U.S. economy.
04:24But, you know, you highlighted it with Min Min a moment ago.
04:28The real question is about dollar Asia.
04:32This 2025 has been a strong year for the dollar against some G10 currencies and some emerging market currencies.
04:42But the real question is whether the Chinese are going to allow their currency to appreciate to sort of ease some of the pressure from the big trade surplus and current account surplus.
04:54They probably won't allow a lot.
04:56But I think if we see the renminbi appreciating, we might see some other Asian emerging market currencies following suit or being pushed up in that way.
05:07And then I'm also watching EM currencies that are beneficiaries of the cheaper oil prices, even places like Turkey, but also other importers like India, for example.
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