00:00I always think about treasuries when you come on because of what Atomic allows investors to do in terms of
00:06trading.
00:07What do you see as the impacts, the most important impacts, from your business on the war in Iran?
00:13I believe many of our customers, including Atomic, were expecting interest rates to drop into 2026.
00:20But as a result of this shutdown of the Strait of Hormuz, we can expect that to lead to inflation
00:26fears that ultimately will keep yields elevated.
00:28And ultimately because we hold billions of dollars for businesses that are using that to essentially increase their cash flow,
00:37we expect that to have sadly a positive effect on their desire and willingness to invest in these instruments.
00:46How much of what we're seeing now, because the move in the 10-year, for example, is not like we're
00:52seeing in Europe, in the UK.
00:53There we have two interest rate hikes by the end of the year now priced in for the ECB, a
00:5950% odds that the BOE is going to hike.
01:01Is this move in this American bond market just in sympathy of what's happening abroad, or are we seriously reconsidering
01:07the ability of this Fed to cut this year?
01:09You know, I think when we look at last week, we saw jobs numbers were weak.
01:13And so we obviously expected our rate cuts to come about.
01:16But I believe the shock aspect of this and the fact that, you know, first of all,
01:21much to Bobby has been, you know, put in as a supreme leader and is probably operating from a position
01:25of grief as a result of what happened.
01:27I think the expectation is that, you know, this will be a war that will continue for a much longer
01:32period of time
01:33and ultimately a war that will affect, you know, oil production and ultimately inflation as a whole.
01:39We've seen a flood into cash, obviously, as a result of this war over the last week and a couple
01:46of days.
01:46And I was reminded of what Atomic does for businesses after the collapse of SVB or what Atomic's potential is
01:53for business.
01:54Are your clients also making those same moves going into, I mean, the ultra-short treasuries, you know, zero to
02:01three months?
02:02Yeah, we've seen that trend continue.
02:05And ultimately, a lot of the clients that are holding these instruments are businesses.
02:09And so we expect that to, you know, continue to advance as this war advances as well.
02:15How bad does it need to be for treasuries to become a hedge again?
02:20Well, it really depends.
02:22I think that if there aren't any signs of de-escalation and if people view this war as one that
02:29will continue for much longer,
02:31I would expect there to be a flight to safety.
02:33I'd expect there to also be a flight to other instruments like gold, for example.
02:38Gold, though, has been so volatile.
02:39Yeah, it's been crazy to watch.
02:41I mean, I'm pulling up GLCO, as I have, like, 500 times in the last 24 hours.
02:45Right now, we look at spot gold down 2%.
02:47Okay, it's still over $5,000 a troy ounce, but much of the gain had been really speculative.
02:54True, true.
02:55But it's hard to know how the markets will react to this, just given that it's unprecedented for the street
03:00to be closed in the first place.
03:02And so we're cautiously observing this to see how our investors will react, how the markets will react as well.
03:08David, Atomic Invest has also been doing some work with the Trump accounts, the investment accounts for individuals.
03:14What exactly have you been doing?
03:15What's your role to play in this as the government explores this investment strategy?
03:19I think that's a really good question.
03:21First of all, I think the Trump accounts, in our view, are actually a financial literacy policy disguised as an
03:28investing account.
03:29They really have the ability to teach an entire generation of Americans about the power of compounding by allowing them
03:35to invest very early on.
03:37But I believe that for the policy to be a success, the government will have to work closely with the
03:43fintech and banking ecosystem to raise awareness around these accounts,
03:46considering that they're an opt-in account.
03:48And so people will have to discover it and learn it through their existing financial relationships as well.
03:53The part that Atomic plays specifically with these accounts is that we power platforms that reach millions of investors.
04:01And so we are potentially an enabler of many Americans being able to get access to those accounts once it's
04:09possible for them to contribute to them in July.
04:11So what, you partner with more consumer-facing businesses where people can access these accounts, or is Atomic also going
04:21to be a consumer-facing platform that people can use?
04:24We are strictly a back-end provider to these consumer-facing businesses.
04:29And so you can think about your bank or platforms, for instance, like NerdWallet, where people discover new products.
04:35These platforms will be more able to offer these accounts to their customers by white-labeling our services in their
04:42ecosystem.
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