 Okay, very good morning to you. It is Friday the 29th of October. Of course we're going to talk about Facebook becoming meta as Zuckerberg tries to push the idea of the metaverse forward and a rebranding overhaul of the parent company. So we'll have a look at that. We'll also have a look at Apple Amazon earnings. They came out aftermarket yesterday and they were down three and a half percent and four percent each respectively. So we'll have a look at why they reacted so negatively in the overnight set. And then we're going to talk about ECB sources following the hawkish moves that were seen in the euro yesterday, which appreciated quite sharply. A lot of the focus was on inflation, of course. And some of the rhetoric was deemed as her being, or the market perception, her being too timid on the pushback of more aggressive pricing of rate hikes in the European area. And then we're going to talk about Capital Hill updates on Biden's package and then a few things on China from China Evergrande, making a last minute payment again to kind of live another day for the time being and then cold futures, which continues to decline quite rapidly on more verbal intervention on behalf of China to ease some of those commodity price pressures at the moment. So that's what's on the agenda. Before I get stuck into Mark and his metaverse, let's just have a look at the general flavour of how markets are looking at the moment. We had a positive finish across Wall Street last night. The S&P was up a percent, Nadal 7 tenths, the Nasdaq and Outperformer, albeit slightly at 1.4 percent. A bit of a drift lower, though, as you can see in the Nasdaq future, after initially hitting those highs pretty much at the close, we then saw quite a rapid decline on the back of those tech giants coming out. Remember, Apple and Amazon are the second and third biggest companies in the S&P 500. The only company they're behind, of course, is Microsoft. And so those two companies alone account for about 10 percent of the entire Nasdaq 100 index. And hence the reason why that stock index came off quite aggressively overnight session. The move obviously not quite as pronounced, but tracking in a similar fashion for the S&P down 21 this morning. The DAX down about 94 elsewhere. As far as the currency market is concerned, the dollar index this morning is up marginally around 0.14 percent. So cable is pretty flat, Euro is underperforming, but I don't think that comes as much a surprise, given the sharp outperformance yesterday. The gain in the Euro was more than an excessive 1 percent. And the previous 20 day daily range was more akin to a 0.2 percent move. So yesterday was a big move on the upside. So a little bit of a pullback from there wouldn't be too surprising. Gold, a little bit lower this morning down six bucks as to is the US 10 year down five ticks. And then oil is trading absolutely flat at the moment. So that kind of area, a band of support that we were eyeing around these previous resistance support areas in the 81 handle, working out not only yesterday overnight session, but also during the kind of the switch between late European morning and US entrance yesterday and for a pretty, pretty decent pullback up to the 83 mark for the moment where oil resides lack of real news flow right now. Nothing meaningful overnight to mention on that front. But let's get stuck into Mark Zuckerberg and this change. And I don't know about you, but whenever I look at Zuckerberg, particularly in this image, he looks like a combination between a humanoid and an avatar. I'm not sure whether he's trying to do that on purpose, but the way that they dress him up and put the makeup on is slightly disconcerting. But nonetheless, what is Meta's vision? Well, their vision is that people will congregate and communicate by entering virtual environments, whether they're talking to colleagues in a boardroom or hanging out with friends in far flung places all around the world. You name it, they can make it. The new name won't affect the company uses of it or how it shares its data and the corporate structure is not changing apps, including flagship social networks like Instagram, WhatsApp, they all keep exactly the same names and icons and so on that you you've been used to. But leaning harder into the metaverse lets the company appear, of course, to be looking to pursue some kind of diversification at a time when they're facing many different levels of criticism over the years. Obviously, on data privacy, you had the Cambridge Analytica stuff on the political interventions and things like that being used in such such fashion. You've now got this obviously youth issue with the impact is having a mental health on young people. You've got the fact that they don't necessarily fully understand or control their algorithms to stop things like hate speech. And so, yeah, it doesn't come as a surprise, this type of move, whether or not it has longevity to really mask over some of these underlying issues is yet to be to be seen. One of the interesting things also that I read this morning was that how Facebook might find it challenging to try and retain a lot of key staff and if those staff aren't already working on things like AR and VR technology, then trying to maintain employees of a high quality when there's so much competition obviously in the tech space to stay at the company could be a long term challenge that they'll also face. Building up the metaverse, though, will allow meta to reduce its dependency on mobile operating system and browser makers, such as Google, Apple to deliver their services to consumers. So as per the impact that's that's been evident in lights of snap in particular, but other social media names as the new iOS privacy changes have come in on Apple, this as well goes some way to try and circumvent that to attain some power over that user base and generating of their advertising revenues, which obviously is very critical to the business. So, yeah, that's the latest there is change won't come into effect. I don't believe for another month or so anyhow. So it kind of is akin to how in terms of from a technicality, how you still have Google, but the parent company is alphabet. Now you have Facebook, still app, but then you've got the meta that sits above that. Having a look at these aftermarket earnings, then we have Apple. So starting off with the EPS that came in in line revenues amiss eighty three point three six billion below the expected eighty four point seven. Their iPhone revenues were thirty eight point eight seven billion below the expected forty one point six. And CEO Tim Cook said supply chain constraints hurt sales by six billion US dollars, and that was larger than expected. So not often you see numbers that below expectations for Apple, but such as the lofty heights of which the market generally looks at for these numbers to punch, you know, particularly strong numbers that yeah, they just haven't really lived up to that this time round. And the supply chain constraints clearly evident on the firm as suggested by Cook himself. So Apple shares aftermarket down about three and a half percent, as you can see here. And then Amazon, they were even worse. They were down four percent in aftermarket trades. So as you can see here, I just bring it up. So immediately aftermarket, they reported and got hit quite hard and remained lower. The EPS at six dollars twelve street estimate for eight dollars and ninety two. So well below expectations, revenues amiss at one hundred ten point eight billion against one eleven point eight expected. Their outlook, though, was very disconcerting. They see Q4 net sales at one hundred and thirty to one hundred and forty billion dollar range, so one hundred and thirty five. That's below expectations of one hundred and forty one point six on the street. It comes despite AWS putting in another solid performance. Of course, their sales were up thirty nine percent as the division's fastest growth rate of growth since two thousand and nineteen. So overall, then it's for Christmas. They do see the forecast being quite considered to be lower than what they previously had foreseen. The company in itself, though, you know, it was always going to be a challenge to live up to the pandemic, just outperformance that they had. Obviously, year to date, they're pretty flat as we were discussing earlier in the week, compared to companies like Alphabet, which are up, you know, over 50 percent on the year. Amazon is also contending with mounting costs as in expanding its fulfillment networks. Remember, going to the seasonal shift, we tend to see that as well. Not only do they create more business, obviously, as people shop around Christmas, but also it becomes more expensive because you have to hire and retain more people. And earlier this month, the company did say intended to add one hundred and fifty thousand seasonal employees to handle that US holiday period. That's fifty thousand more than it required last year. The additional problem here, of course, is that a tight labor market has prompted the company to have to offer higher than normal wages and sign on bonuses of up to three thousand bucks in some markets. So not only are you hiring more employees, you're having to pay them more or just given the context of how the labor market is looking in the US at the moment. And hence the reason why overall, then, it's a little bit negative for the earnings report. Beyond this three and a half four percent move that was seen after market, quite frankly, I think it doesn't really matter. These earnings, if I'm if I'm being honest, and so it wouldn't shape my perception at all about what I think about these companies in the direction of travel, which they're generally getting higher and bigger all of the time. Don't see that changing despite these slightly softer numbers that we've had overnight. All right, other things just before I move on. Don't forget there is a brand new podcast episode that will be coming out later on today. So whether you're on Spotify or podcast or Apple podcast, Google, so on, just search for Amplify Me Market Maker and you'll get the latest weekly wrap up episode myself and the head of training will be having a chat a bit later on this morning. We'll talk about Metta. We'll talk about Tesla Elon Musk and anything you guys want to hear about. So some of the key topics of the week. Otherwise, quick like elsewhere, you've had ECB sources. This obviously follows that meeting yesterday, which did create a fairly meaningful move in the euro, as I discussed. It's becoming very usual fair now for ECB sources to come out shortly after the press conference. What is a source just to quickly cover this? Well, it's not like it's Bloomberg or Reuters speculating of what they think they've heard from hearsay. An ECB source is very much a person at the central bank using media agencies to under the cover of an anonymous source communicates some more transparency to the market. And so generally speaking, then, this is when the quality of what they're saying is very much to the point. It's very authentic and true. And so the market does listen to these things. And so the sources last night said the guards mild rates of pushback reflected the ECB colleagues view. So this is that divergence at the moment between the hawks and the doves. How do they feel about inflation? They paid heed that it was going to be more sticky than that they previously thought. However, they stuck to their transitory view. And it's the division then between what we're seeing with all central banks at the moment, which is this idea about, you know, is inflation indeed still transitory or not? And do we need to take action time policy at a more rapid pace, which we're seeing in other places like the Bank of Canada, the Bank of England, someone and so forth. The other thing is officials advise not to say the market is wrong. So again, in a way, this is a hawkish source comment because the market is priced quite aggressively. Some would say comparative to the fundamentals in Europe, which for different reasons, perhaps is not at the point of warranting such tightening action. But if your officials are advising you not to say the market is wrong, you're effectively passively saying the market is right to price in a more aggressive rate cycle. So, yeah, this came out, hasn't really had much of an impact, but just kind of plays into the hands of very much what the market takeaway was from yesterday overall. And then other news, Joe Biden called on lawmakers to push ahead with the revised 1.75 trillion tax and spending plan, which has been scaled back, of course, from the previous north of three trillion and the 550 billion infrastructure bill is also still pending. So there's kind of two ways to look at this. Obviously, this thing has dragged out forever and that number is getting smaller as that's the mission to try and achieve a compromise of which Biden himself has said this isn't really what he's wanted, but there goes trying to make a deal and we have to compromise. The other thing, though, is that these things are moving forward and something is better than nothing. So hence the reason why I think the markets at the moment are a little bit fatigued by this whole situation, this whole dialogue happening in Congress at the moment. The impact has been fairly marginal, to be quite honest. And then Evergrande, there was an update overnight. So they've made an interest payment for an offshore bond before a grace period expired today. The amount was forty seven point five billion. If you remember this time last week, pretty similar to the situation with the eighty five million that was due at the time. And so this just kind of avert the trigger point then for a more mass sequence of events that could lead to a more significant default at the firm. So again, they kind of surviving for the time being, keeping their head above water. Probably this is the status quo for the time being. And then in China, you did have coal futures. Now, very rarely I talk about coal futures, but they extended a dramatic decline in overnight trade. I think there's a chart here that you can look at and this came as Chinese government said, there's further room for prices to fall. Essentially, ratcheting up interventions in the market aimed at easing the energy crisis is very evident globally at the moment. So again, it's not what you do is what you say. In this instance, they're saying there's room for prices to fall further. So you're you're kind of intonating towards the fact that look, we'll intervene. This isn't yet price moderated enough. We will continue to do and take action until it comes a little bit lower. What that point is, they've not been specific, but that's the overall takeaway. Chinese authorities pressing coal producers to both raise output and lower prices to help address tight fuel supply. There's prompted widespread shortages, seen power restricted for some heavy industrial users and left many utility generating electricity at a loss. And so hence the reason why that is happening. As far as the calendar is concerned for today, this morning, you've really had the French data out the preliminary Q3 GDP at 3 percent. That was actually above the expected 2.1 percent. You then get the flash German Q3 GDP reading the quarter on quarter expected 2.2, the only expected 2.4 percent and be at 9 a.m. London time. You then get at 10 o'clock one of the main releases of the morning. You get the overall Eurozone GDP flash reading. The quarterly print expected 2 percent year and year 3.5. And you also get the HICP flash year and year reading for October expected 3.7 percent. And with a lot of eyes and attention on inflation, particularly coming on the coattails of the guards commentary from yesterday, that's expected to go up year and year from 3.4 to 3.7 percent. You then in the afternoon, you've got US core PCE price index. You also get Chicago PMI from October in the States and the final University of Michigan reading for the same month as well. Earnings wise, Exxon and Chevron are ones to just be aware of that will be coming out a bit later on today. So that is it. I wish you guys a good session ahead. Have a fantastic weekend and please do remember to check out the podcast as well. All right, take care.