 Let's bring in our guest host who joins me in studio this morning, Mark Bailey, from Fixed Securities. Mark, good morning. Thanks so much for joining us. Let's talk the US session just to start off with. It is a big week, isn't it? Obviously, earning season is still continuing. I think we're only 63% of the way through. That's still the focus, but a big week of economic data as well. That's right. I mean, and that's on the back of the GDP print on Friday last week that was, you know, considerably weaker than expected at the headline, you know, people point out that maybe the consumer spending was the strength and you could pull out that as the shining light for the bulls. But I think again, you know, in terms of what we've seen with the oil price as well, it's indicating that demand in that market, global markets, isn't there in terms of that driving that economic growth going forward. And as you say, going forward this week, we just had construction spending overnight, which was very weak compared to expectations. And then on Friday, you've got the non-farm payrolls, which again, you know, is the consensus that, you know, we'll probably be back in terms of more like the June-like figures. I think the consensus is around about 170, 175 for the non-farm payroll figure. Or will it go back to May? But I think, you know, in terms of the Fed's decision, I think it's going to really struggle to move in September. And despite what all the regional Fed officials continue to say, like trying to price that market into expect some move before the year end, I think it's going to be really difficult. And I think part of that is going to be the U.S. election. And that's going to be a lot closer in the run-up to that November election than people think and that uncertainty, which is already coming through, and I think that GDP figure showed that that businesses are cutting back on their business spending in terms of plants and equipment, although consumers at the moment are still kind of shrugging off that uncertainty and still going out and spending. And that's a key driver, as we all know, for the U.S. economy. But in terms of, you know, the election, I just think that uncertainty is going to start to weigh on that picture in the States. OK, yeah, those jobs numbers on Friday are going to be particularly interesting, certainly if it is a robust number there as well. Let's move on because the oil story certainly was a big focus overnight at slip and slide, really continuing, briefly dipping below the $40 handle for the first time since April. It comes amid a supply, I should say, a survey showing output in OPEC hitting record highs last month and the U.S. adding the most rigs in two years. Now, oil has suffered a 15% slip in July, marking its biggest monthly drop in a year. And of course, it is sitting in bear market territory, down sort of 20% from its recent highs as well. Let's bring in Angus Nicholson from iGene Melbourne. Angus, great to see you there this morning. Now, oil prices in bear market territory, do you think we've hit a bottom or is there still further downside to go? It's difficult to know, but certainly we are starting to hit some extreme levels of decline. The fact that we have seen a full 20% correction from the recent highs, which is a technical bear market, is quite significant. And I think psychologically that $40 level in WTI does hold a lot of weight for investors and certainly I think for a lot of people who may have gone short, they'd be closing out their positions at that level. So it will be interesting to see how prices go from here. And certainly I think you noted well, the Baker Hughes number, the OPEC oil report, but also the fact that we saw CFTC net positioning drop quite, become even more negative on the oil price. Again, last week, all of that has sort of created a feedback loop of further negativity in the oil price. But I think we are starting to hit some levels where there would be a range of investors who would be quite happy to pick up oil at $40, particularly with a slightly longer term outlook. And notably overnight, while we saw quite a big collapse in spot crude prices, gasoline prices only declined by about 0.5%. And they've obviously been leading the way with those increased gasoline inventories sort of clogging up supplies. And that's the real concern is that it's those higher level products of crude oil, diesel and gasoline that are really seeing the excess. And the concerns that that may really start leading to an increase in crude inventories in the second half of the year. One of the observations that we've been sort of discussing this morning is this disconnect that we've seen recently from equities and oil prices that at quite a stage there, we were seeing that very tight correlation. But this disconnect now happening, I mean, is this correlation between oil and equities starting to resurface now? Certainly we have seen those correlations spiking up again in recent days. It has been less of a driving force on the ASX, but certainly with regards to the S&P 500 and most particularly emerging market securities, EEM, ETFs and such, move very closely with where the oil price moves. But the difference is that on this occasion, oil is very much being selling off by itself whilst a range of other commodities, industrial metals have actually been doing very well. We saw iron ore spiking to a very big gain overnight in that Qingdao iron ore spot price overnight, very much in reaction to that strong steel PMI we're seeing out of China. So you are seeing a bit of a divergence there within the commodities complex. And I think because of that, you aren't seeing the same impact on equities as a whole with oil. What are your thoughts, Mark, on the oil price? Are you starting to become concerned that we're sort of now back below $40? I guess in terms of the actual overall levels in terms of oil, I guess it's more the indication that it's giving in terms of the global demand and supply. Everybody focuses on the supply of oil and as you kind of talked about in terms of the lead-up, in terms of those rigs coming back online, inventory level still high. But if the global demand in the markets more broadly was there, then the oil price would be higher. So I think that's again indicating that we're in a very slow growth environment more broadly and central banks will have to react to that lack of demand coming through. And I think the oil price is a classic case of that showing coming through in terms of the numbers. OK. Let's move on, Angus, to Japan because the government's looking like it will announce details of this huge stimulus package, I believe, today. What are we expecting, and I guess more broadly, is that likely to give quite a sustainable boost to the economy? Yes, I think the details of a stimulus plan is probably going to be the alongside the RBA, the most important event taking place in the Asian session. And certainly there'd be a lot of Japanese equity investors who are hoping to see quite a big number. But of course, the real issue is how much of it is extra fiscal spending and how much of it will be spent in a shorter term or near term time frame, or is this package going to be spread out over many years? And certainly expectations within equities globally, but particularly there in Japan, have been very high for quite a significant fiscal package to be announced. So I think we do really run the risk of seeing a similar occurrence to what we saw on Friday when expectations were very high for the Bank of Japan to sort of do quite a massive further monetary easing. And indeed, they did disappoint. We saw a sharp reaction in Japanese equities as well as a notable strengthening in the yen. And the risk is that we see a very similar move today. Mark, do you think that we could see a case that the market is disappointed again by the BOJ? Yeah, I think Angus points out, right? We've seen the big headline number of, you know, 275 US billion dollars. But as Angus points out, it's kind of what is that near term stimulus going to be? What is actually going to be spent on projects or is the bulk of that as has been the case historically on additional loans to the various different sectors to try and drive that growth going forward? And I think last week on Friday, the market was quite rightly disappointed. You know, they didn't get the kind of number in terms of the ETFs, the equity buying that probably some of the equity holders would have liked to see. So as always, the devil is always in the detail. Absolutely. And we'll see what comes forward today. In terms of the yen moves, Angus, what do you think we can expect? Because we certainly saw the yen surging again.