00:00I think you're still bearish when it comes to stocks. How much worse could things get? Is there anything this
00:06Friday morning to be optimistic about?
00:10Not really, Lizzie. You know, look, since the war started, I have pivoted, you know, very bearish.
00:17And in fact, I've grown more bearish as time has gone on, more kind of feeling that stocks are complacent
00:22to what is happening out there.
00:24I'm not a geopolitical expert. Unfortunately, everything has to be based on geopolitics right now.
00:28But all the bullish arguments I hear are based on just assumptions which just don't seem to make sense.
00:35The news flow. Everyone's talking about Trump's offramp. Well, what's Iran's offramp?
00:40Iran is the one who's closed the Strait of Ramoz, which is the one that's disrupted in the global economy.
00:44I don't see what their incentive is to open it up without being offered something massive in return.
00:49I'm not seeing the world in the space that it wants to offer Iran many goodies right now.
00:52So I just don't see how this as an imminent outcome.
00:57Again, I reiterate, I'm not a geopolitical expert and stocks definitely are pricing a very imminent outcome.
01:03They're pricing that because Trump cares about markets, it'll all be resolved soon, even though they can't explain how we
01:08get there.
01:09They're like, Trump will want to offramp. Well, he's not the only protagonist in this story.
01:13So stocks are completely complacent and I still see severe downside for stocks.
01:18And it's getting a little bit depressing because I'm not seeing where the optimism is.
01:23You know, despite that we went into this situation, you know, with an extremely positive backdrop,
01:29I feel like we're ruining everything because I don't see where the end in sight is in terms of the
01:34Strait of Ramoz flowing freely.
01:37And I think the disruption to markets is still being underestimated.
01:41Stocks facing still a severe, a severe sell off.
01:45And interesting that you put the lens on on what the offrant could be for the Iranian regime rather than
01:50rather than for President Trump.
01:52We've got a great piece on the terminal today about how investors have to rethink and rip up strategies in
01:56the playbook.
01:57Mark, the 64, 40 portfolios is definitely not working, both both sinking in tandem.
02:02And what is the clearest? Is it all about the dollar still?
02:05Is it still about the greenback in terms of how to hedge this risk?
02:11Yeah, it is.
02:12Look, I still think that Skylar Montgomery-Koning wrote the definitive piece in this on March 1st on the Sunday
02:18before markets opened,
02:20saying, like, the dollar is the only haven to this kind of crisis.
02:24Obviously, you're going to get an energy shock, so you can't buy treasuries.
02:27It's inflationary.
02:28At some point, treasuries will rally on the demand destruction point as it continues.
02:33But it's not the obvious trade because they sell off badly first.
02:36You're not going to buy gold because, obviously, you should see higher dollar, higher yields.
02:39And we've had the geopolitical risk premium played out.
02:41So you've got to sell gold.
02:43So dollar is the only one that works.
02:45And, you know, I'm the person who's been a structural dollar bearer for the last 15, 16 months.
02:49But, you know, since Skylar's piece on 1st of March, yeah, I think the dollar continues to be strong.
02:55There's more to rally.
02:56I think we're still at early innings.
02:58Again, that will pivot as soon as the straight opens.
03:01But you've got to believe in the straight opening very soon.
03:04And that requires a very ambitious set of assumptions.
03:07I don't think it's happened.
03:08It's bleak out there, unfortunately.
03:09I don't think it's bleak out there, unfortunately.
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