 So hello and welcome to episode 92 of the market maker podcast and going to be on this episode by myself peers is otherwise engaged. So I'll do my best to just run you through some of the major talking points in this week so going to talk a little bit about the latest FMC minutes going to talk about the underperformance of the UK economy going forward, going to the latest forecast and the OECD and then volatility in the oil market after some denials coming out of Saudi Arabia and also what's going on with COVID situation in China. But before I begin, it has been a holiday impacted week because in the US. It is of course, Thanksgiving. So if you are based in North America and you're listening to this. Happy Thanksgiving and couple of quick fire quiz questions for you and going to start off with the cost of hosting a Thanksgiving lunch this year because Turkey prices have gone up on a year and year basis by. Do you have a think, what do you reckon. Okay, have you got a number in mind. 24%. So how close were you. So Turkey prices are up 24%. If you want to make your mashed potatoes, it's going to cost you about 20% more than it did this time last year. If you're one of those people that can't eat your turkey without a bit of cranberry sauce and that's going to cost you an extra 18% as well. Overall ingredients for Thanksgiving I've got the stats here. The meal in itself is going to cost shoppers on an average about 13.5% more eggs and butter actually key ingredients of course for anyone who's got a sweet tooth for those desserts and sides. It was up 74.7% and butter was up 38.5%. So I guess question there is why on earth are eggs so expensive right now. Well egg laying hens have been impacted very heavily by the avian flu, driving a prices through the roof, as you just seen so yeah, it's a little bit costly, of course, but I hope everyone gets to celebrate and enjoy the long weekend and festivities if you're based in the States. But let's get straight in and wrap up some of the major news from this week kicking off with the latest FMC minutes. And just to give you a bit of an idea for anyone just relatively new to markets the minutes are basically a line by line accounts of the discussions of which the federal open market committee so the decision makers at the US central bank the federal reserve have over a two day period for them to then determine what they need to do with monetary policy when they meet eight times a year. Now, the one thing about the US and very similar to the European central bank is that the minutes normally have like a two week lag. And the one published after the actual event in itself has happened, either a decision, the one central bank in the Western world. That's a little bit different is the Bank of England who simultaneously release their outcome of their deliberations on policy so they announced interest rates and QE and so forth, but they also drop their minutes, the Fed and ECB have a bit of a delay. Now, why is there a difference between the approach of those central banks well, it's really down to how they feel is best from a communication strategy points of view, the Bank of England feel as though it's better to just put all the information on the table up and so that the market has full transparency of the latest thinking that the bank has. And some of those other central banks have actually talked about, although this hasn't happened about moving the minutes on to a similar format to the Bank of England because if you think about it, a lot can happen of course, in financial markets in two weeks, rendering then a fortnight old set of minutes redundant. And quite often is the case. So, what were the main takeaways from the midweek release of the Fed minutes while the headline was that most Fed officials seek to slow the pace of interest rate hikes soon. My quote from the minutes was that a substantial majority of participants judged that a slowing in the pace of increases would likely be appropriate soon. While some officials also expressed concern over the impact that rate increases could have on financial stability, and the economy so overall, those comments didn't really have too much of a media impact if anything actually bond and stock prices in the country rose simultaneously, because it's this idea that we are getting more concrete hints towards the Fed pivot I we still got further rate rises to come over the coming meetings. However, the pace of those rises is starting to slow down in terms of the intensity of policy tightening meaning that we're getting towards the peak now of the interest rate cycle so overall as far as this week is concerned we're getting quite for the second half of the week with the US out US equities again looking into putting a pretty decent performance. The NASDAQ just short of 12,000 now and the S&P for the moment Friday morning, sitting back above 4,000. The other things then were the UK. And the reason why that's come back into to focus is because the UK economy is set to be the worst performer in the G20 bar Russia over the next two years according to the latest forecasts from the OECD. Again, just to put that in context, the only country that's going to be worse economically in terms of growth rates out of the G20, other than Great Britain is Russia. I mean, that's quite quite a stark statement, I guess, of the kind of predicament that we find ourselves here in the UK. So it's half yearly economic outlook the OECD said the UK economy would expand by 4.4% this year, the sixth fastest in the G20 but then would contract by 0.4% next year. Germany is the only other G7 country forecast to shrink next year by 0.3%, but then we'll bounce back with a 1.5% growth rate anticipating 2024. So again, it's kind of like this move back up that we're likely to see in growth rates after we go into this recession in the near term. The OECD chief economist said that the UK's poor performance was because of a combination of rising interest rates, government action to bring down borrowing and debt. And then the market turbulence during this trust is brief period as Prime Minister I still, as we said last week peers and I still can't believe that couple of week period when trust was in charge just the amount of damage that's being done. The scarring lives on as you can see here because even though things like mortgage rates and so forth to start to ease back a bit they're still very elevated at this point in time. And then the third and final thing I'll just touch upon to wrap up really this week was oil prices closed a little bit lower on on Monday at the beginning of the week but as a really volatile start to to the trading week. The prices originally plunged and then rebounded quite quickly because Saudi Arabia categorically denied the report that OPEC was weighing an increase in output that would help to counteract a loss of Russian crude supplies. So basically what happened here was that prices hit their lowest oil prices, their lowest level intraday since the beginning of the year. So literally 11 months ago after the Wall Street Journal reported that Saudi Arabia and other OPEC producers were discussing a production increase of up to 500,000 barrels a day when the group meets in Vienna, next meeting coming on the fourth of December. So why are they talking about increasing when we're heading into recession isn't that counterintuitive of what they would want, which is a firmer price well the point being is that any decision that they're making timings wise, an increase in output from the lights of Saudi Arabia leading the charge would come a day before the EU is set to introduce an embargo on Russian oil shipments and plans for G7 countries and to cap the price of Russian crude so looking to kind of fill the void, so to speak. So overall, obviously Saudi denied this, but more often or not there's no smoke without fire, a little bit like some of the rumor mongering early in the week as well about Zuckerberg potentially stepping down, however the communications chief at Metta did deny that I do often think that when these things start to circulate it kind of then the starting guns been fired and it's probably only a matter of time before these things do actually come to fruition so certainly with the oil side of things I don't think I'd find it surprising at all to hear Saudi Arabia and lead the movement, let's say of OPEC related nations to increase supply a little bit when those price caps do come in on Russia. Now the other thing that's kept oil prices fairly suppressed recently we are trading below an $80 handle at this present point in time in US oil is the fact that China has recorded its highest number of daily COVID cases since the pandemic begun, despite the stringent measures designed to eliminate the virus so several major cities including the capital Beijing, the southern trade hub of Guangzhou have experienced outbreaks and so this is still very much on keeping traders on the watch at the moment for the, what a couple of different things really the impact of potential supply chain disruptions however, as much as there has been a little bit of eye on, on the iPhone production facilities at Foxconn for where there's been lots of unrest there. Otherwise it's then about the overall consumption for for crude or if they do go into full lockdown, given the broader context of the recessionary environment we're about to experience globally at this present point in time. And that is it so I'm only going to talk about those things so that was a short sharp update for you just to get you up to speed on a couple of key things and any students at the moment because I know I continue to talk to them pretty much day today, a lot of you in the midst of application season, been posting out a couple of things on on our LinkedIn channels so under myself or via amplify me with some useful resources and things so do make sure you check that out because they're all going to be super useful for when you're in interviews and assessment sensors and so on. Otherwise, that is it. Have yourself a great weekend and peers will be back next week. And I look forward to catching up with you all then. All right, take care.