 Okay, hello and welcome to episode 59 of the Market Maker podcast and I'm joined by Piers Curran co-founder of Amplify. How's it going, Piers? It's going very well. Good morning. Yeah, we've got a whole ton of stuff to talk about and I'll run through the kind of quick fire of the major headlines for the week. So just to start, it was the two year anniversary on Wednesday of March 23, 2020 is when we bottomed out in US equities. And if you remember on the day, I'm sure you do, Piers, this is when Powell came out and basically said to infinity and beyond, which was will do QE unlimited, basically. That was it. That marked the bottom. I don't know if you remember on that that day what you were doing, but I remember on that day because that was the same day Boris said we're basically going to go into lockdown, the first major lockdown at the time. And it was all kind of panic because we still didn't even know what this virus was. Still didn't know how you catch it if you remember and I remember we that's when we gave the signal right everyone's going to have to work from home. The government said, and I remember just grabbing one of one of the on the desks we have these mounts that have like multi screens. So I just took the entire mount was six screens. Two PCs stood outside the office in the city. And I was trying to flag a cab down which was impossible because there was like me and every other Joe in the city doing the same thing. But I had to call my wife. She was not happy because I had to get her to help me lug these these screens down one of the streets to try and get to an Uber. So yeah, I remember that day very well but yeah it was people like getting on the tube and just people with just, you know, 50% of people on the train had us had a monitor under their arm. Do you remember as when Boris said that statement, I'm pretty sure he said at the time this will all be over and I think it was either eight weeks or 12 weeks. I can't remember the timeline he said but it was. Yeah. At least, at least at least Boris recognized that it was actually a thing. I mean, remember Trump back then was just like what virus, what Chinese virus. Quite shocking. But I guess like from a market's point of view. Yeah, it's interesting so we're like the kind of two year anniversary of the low I think. I think once, once lockdown came in, and they the realization was was well the uncertainty became reality. You know, so we were quite sure what's going to happen as you know and then suddenly you're at home working from home and I think then it was actually quite immediately clear then that this was going to be a hugely positive development for a large number of companies. You know, like the pelotons and the zooms and so on and so then from an investor's point of view it then became about right. This is, this is a probably a once in a generation opportunity investment opportunity. If, if you now get your kind of sector plays right and then yeah and add in the monster kind of punch bowl from the central banks and the government around the fiscal side and you got a recipe for, you know, huge upside huge asset price appreciation. And that's there's nothing more so than in that you know those big US indices and particularly like the NASDAQ just quite extraordinary. Well yeah the NASDAQ low to high. Don't forget the high was only a few months ago. So pre this episode of inflation scare and geopolitics 100 over 150% the NASDAQ 100. We're talking about mega cap, you know, huge companies and the index is up over 150%. I'm just looking at the chart now and cut the COVID, I don't know if anybody can bring up a long term NASDAQ chart but the COVID blip it's hardly can hardly see it. I mean, it did delight in percentage so I did try I mean it was trading at about 9500 and it dropped to 7000. I mean that's pretty road saw right but felt pretty hairy at the time. Yeah, so it traded below 7000. And then of course, yeah, the high at the end of last year was north of 1616 and a half days. Just extraordinary times. Yeah, I mean and fast forward the last two weeks I mean I'm just looking at the US indices we're about to head in on Friday into the US open stocks up at the minute from the low that we printed the last two weeks the NASDAQ is up over 14% now. The S&P's up nearly 10% in the last two weeks as well now so can it may be maintained I'm not sure but perspective I've just I've just noticed something the sell-off we've had in the NASDAQ I know we've bounced so it's been a good couple of weeks as you've just said but prior to that bounce the sell-off we had back in the last year into this year on all the inflation thing and then obviously Ukraine Russia was actually a larger points sell-off in the NASDAQ than COVID than the COVID sell-off in spring 2020 we sold off 3000 points. More than more than 3000 points in this last set off whereas that COVID sell-off was like two and a half thousand obviously in percentage terms though. There's a bigger points sell-off but obviously in percentage terms. You sound like you sound like a journalist talking Piers now. Picking and choosing your optics for a maximum impact. Absolutely. Well you've just said what was it 14% rally in two weeks but actually we haven't rallied half of the sell-off yet so. Don't worry it's coming. It is about optics so it's so interesting with markets your time frame what time frame do you use. You know it's very yeah I actually said the journalist spinning it spinning it like a journalist you can pretty much you can you can frame an argument whichever way you want right depending on time frame. Do you use points or percentage or yeah so you gotta be gotta be careful. It's interesting when the market goes up. No one talks about it. In fact when the market goes up enough people start to talk negatively about it. And when the market goes down people talk about it the most. So in fact what should be optimism and markets going up let's say based I mean we know it's not as simple as just based on pure economic performance but it's funny the way of which media taps into that innate human psyche that we like to see things burn just generally. And we do it with more powerful the response that they get through talking about the risk factor. I guess it's just built into our caveman instincts to be fearful of certain things that impact our livelihood and well being it's amazing that still rings true. No look there's a spectrum of journalism in terms of it's going from fair more neutral to more kind of left or white ring extremist and but you know no matter where they sit on the spectrum, a crisis cells paper I was going to say papers who reads the paper anymore but you know what I mean right crisis cells. So it's like sensationalizing anything that's negative and spinning into a crisis is is the modus operandum. It's like but I think it goes, it's, it goes to disgusting levels in my opinion, like some of the US stuff like a good example is the Ukraine, Russia conflict, and some of the reporting on that it's like they're super pumped and excited and like, oh we've got a crisis, we're going to guys don't worry we've got this we're going to, we're going to have the best coverage we're going to be here we're going to be there and like they've really pumped and excited. Because they think in their journalist mind this is a crisis is going to sell paying zero kind of consideration to the sort of disastrous humanitarian thing that's unfolding for them it's more important about the story and the scoop and being the first right So there is an extent there is a nasty end of that journalism spectrum. Yeah. Well, I mean obviously Russia Ukraine is still ongoing. Actually Ukraine has reoccupied control of towns and defensive positions just outside the east of the capital but look, I'm going to park that for this episode because we've been talking about that a lot. I did think what was very interesting though before I give the highlights of the week and the major major headlines was that the EU and Biden was talking about China. Yesterday, so funny how they tiptoe around China. It's like, they're just so scared of the mismanaging of that relationship and the harm severe harm that could do to them. There's a different level of ballgame on those geopolitical kind of ties but yeah well we'll leave that for now let me run through some of the other headlines then and a bit of a mixed bag actually wanted to broaden it out and Elon Musk. Oh that guy, that guy. I mean, why, but he does it. I mean he was he was dancing again. I mean it's just tragic but I mean, like you said it. He generates clicks and he certainly did. They opened a much anticipated Berlin plant and we're going to talk about that a little bit more detail in a moment because there's some interesting kind of facts and figures around that. But yeah, Elon's back at it. Again, just doing all kinds of shenanigans to the juice it and to be fair he has juiced the share price. I look at Tesla share price. And, oh, that is just a beast because and I say that because of the size of the company. I mean their shares have risen. I'm just looking back to last Monday, they've risen nearly 40% since last Monday. Yeah, they hit there was it about 750 bucks they've just crept through $1,000 again, yeah today. It's insane. I'll say that again what percentage is that that's, that's a 40% for two weeks. I was going to kind of temper that by saying, well yeah, tech stocks are up, you know, broadly and they are but as you were saying the Nasdaq's up 14%, not 14%. So yeah, it's Elon doing his thing and obviously opening the new factory. Yeah, we'll talk about the factory opening but the other thing obviously that we have seen is crypto. ESA is on the ascent as well it reaches highest level since around 17th of Feb is our optimism at the moment over an upcoming major upgrade called the merge, which will reduce environmental costs of the blockchain and lower transaction fees. But my understanding is this has been in the pipeline for a while there's been lots of issues and it's just the kind of preparation of this is we've seen so many of these actually over recent times with a lot of the crypto news. It's kind of that total by the rumors sell the facts type of mentality but that's definitely been going on that's been a talking point. I know we'll delve into this in more detail but they've acquired UK based fintech startup credit kudos. And we'll look at why they've done that. What's the strategy behind that move on the macro side goleman's shifted gears on their fed call. I mean, they've been pretty hawkish on on the street they're looking for back to back fifties. May and June. Got a double tap in their opinion. A couple of Fed speakers have been talking up the 50 again and the markets shifted in that way definitely for the next meeting. But what do you reckon back to back. Well, I mean it's kind of. Yeah, I mean they're rhetoric at the Fed has again been quite it's reminiscent of like back in December. They just kept getting more hawkish and you were like, oh my God, why they've been so hawkish and then they go and be more hawkish and I guess yeah fifties. I mean fifties in there right for the next meeting I mean, yeah back to back. I mean look I on the last literally only a week ago. I was saying my opinion was that the idea of six more rate hikes this year I thought was crazy and I was more like four rate hikes and yet. Now it's getting being priced in that will have four hikes in the next two meetings basically. Yeah. I don't know. It looks like they'll do a 50 hike I just seems an error. If they do back to back fifties. And that is, that's, that's a whole new territory. I've never, never. Well, I won't know what to do. I think I think it would be too much. I don't think markets will deal with a crisis calls for extreme measures pairs. Let's see. I mean obviously inflation is the key and what happens with this energy situation. There's a lot of things to monitor there and China COVID supply chain disruptions. There's a lot. There's a lot to happen. One thing I would say and I said this at the time. I think it was when everyone was baking in 50, and it was a month out to the meeting and I was like just hold your horses guys. There's 30 days to run. I mean we are talking about may meeting. And as we've seen with the Ukraine crisis is what in its fifth week. So the welcome change on a dime and right. And I was I was definitely in agreement with you last time. I actually, I don't agree with you now. I even though we're 30 days out, I think what they've been saying. We're going to get 50 hike and you've kind of had that. Well, obviously you never know what might happen as you quite rightly say but like the Russia Ukraine thing looks like it's kind of entrenched in now. Are we going to see a dramatic sort of escalation could possibly but chances of a dramatic escalation of reduced. If you see what I mean, but you never know there might be a whole entirely you kind of black swan event that happens but I don't know. I think we're probably going to get 50 now. Yeah, crazy. What was the Russian equities resume trading. So the Moscow exchange resume trading and 33 Russian equities of the 50 listed in their benchmark. That happened yesterday morning, and as soon as it opened pop went up 15% I think Ross neff look look oil were up around 20% not that's not to be unexpected right. I was to be expected I mean that they were crushed going into this so seeing these like massive jumps is no big deal right. Yeah, I mean it's just what like you say it's the journalist spinning the kind of the narrative right when you say jumps what did you say 20% or something. Yeah, but like Ross neff for example I'm just looking at that chart now like in January it was trading up around 632. Okay. Even with the big rally there. It's now only up to 365 so still trading pretty much let's just round it half of its previous value, even though you've seen that big pop and it's still the lowest share price, you know, we've seen this 2020. When we had covered and the idea of energy demand were just collapsed so you remember the price of oil went negative in April of 2020 right and the price of Ross neff is not too far off where it was in April 2020. So even though we've had that sharp jump when there's a thing called a dead cat bounce. Google it. That's got to be it's got to be a dead cat banks right there. Okay, and then. Sorry, my cat just walked past. Just as you said that I kid, if only I could show you. But the, the other news headlines two more EU has has just made an announcement, the US and EU to supply basically gas LNG coming from the US to Europe, and obviously this is to lessen the dependence, the heavy dependence obviously that Europe has on Russia. So the US will provide the EU at least 15 billion additional cubic meters of LNG by the end of the year. And just as a reminder russian billion. Tell me how much is that is that a lot. Yes, good question. I don't think it is. I mean I don't have to do you know right in terms of daily consumption or whatever. Yeah we we context definitely would help with that and let me let me dig it out when you're while we're on the pod, while we're going I can multitask it will find out. And then the final thing, obviously the biggest news of the week. Italy. You know what's happening with Italy. Well I said she broke English hearts. Last July. Yeah, but it's extraordinary. Yeah, well they failed to qualify for the World Cup for the second straight tournament, the European champions and shock one meal defeat. The mighty North Macedonia. I mean that's a talk about collapsing. You know, you're talking about collapsing price of Rosneth this is, this is even bigger fall from grace quite just so weird sport isn't it. It's what's great about sport, I guess right doesn't matter it's David versus Goliath but sometimes David wins. Yeah, love it. Yeah, that's why people love sport. Yeah. All right, well let's let's delve into the first topic which is, which is Tesla. We briefly talked about Elon's publicity pushes. It comes as he opened the New Berlin factory and a couple of statistics here the actual factory in itself cost 5.5 billion US dollars to build. I mean that's just a lot. That's a lot of money. I mean that's how many Teslas has he got a cell to kind of make that back 5.5 million. Let me go through so the company, the company, well this might help the company sees the Berlin factory producing up to 500,000 vehicles on an annual basis. Now we'll get we'll get round to what he said in terms of my question when I heard that was, okay that's cool 500,000 vehicles. When are you going to hit production rate at 500,000 annually then. Yeah, that's not going to happen tomorrow. Yeah, well you're going to say it. Yeah, so there's the stat on that was he said himself, he did like a trip to the construction site back at back end of last year when this was all going on. And he said the start of production is nice, but volume production is the hard part he said himself so he was kind of front running this a little bit but obviously he's got excited on the actual factory launch day. He added that he added back then in October the Tesla would target making 5000 to 10,000 vehicles a week by the end of of 2022. Yeah, so that's a very big range, by the way, and we're only nine months away from the end of what I want to know is how is that forecast. How is the range of that forecast so monstrously wide, just nine months away from that date I mean, maybe I'm being unfair obviously we are in still in the middle of a supply chain nightmare so maybe obviously that makes it a lot harder to forecast 5000 a week is a run rate of about 260,000 a year, 10,000 a week, that's his, that's his capacity, if his capacity is 500,000 a year. And that's obviously 10,000 a week right so he's going to be somewhere between operating at 50% capacity or full capacity in nine months time. I don't know, it's only 500,000. Yeah, and so the, so the interesting thing here was a separate piece I read this week which was talking about Volkswagen. And we've talked about this before about your Ford motors, your Volkswagen's, you know, companies which have very matured manufacturing processes in place, logistics distribution. Yeah, all the rest of it. And basically VW said, I mean I like anecdotally I see do start to see now EV V dubs in different, different ranges now I actually I wasn't seeing that I'd say a couple months ago. But you are starting to see more, they're out now and so a couple of facts here, the number of electric models, including the Porsche Taycan has already sold out for this year. I mean, I guess the run rate of production for that model is probably quite low but the point being is that the company's EV business is expected to be profitable ahead of schedule this is for Volkswagen. Look at the context here. Volkswagen has 650,000 employees, 10 distinct brands, like I just mentioned Portion and so forth, but VW group is just an absolute giant in auto manufacturing. Last year the company delivered almost 9 million cars. Yeah. So just shy of 10x what Tesla shipped. And so what this article I read did was a bit of a back of napkin calculation they were saying look the rate of improvement that VW are making the demand and the ability to upscale production. They were saying that the run, the numbers and the German giant is only about anywhere between 12 to 15 months behind Tesla. Yeah. It's like the best analogy, do you watch cycling. Cycling. Yeah. Like the Tour de France, that kind of stuff. You know, you know, this idea of the peloton, right, which is when the group are together. Right. And sometimes you get a break away. There's like an individual cyclist that's trying to go alone. Right. Basically what's happening here the peloton is catching. The peloton that's broken out is Tesla and the peloton is catching at speed. And it's just going to go up sucking him into the peloton. Especially as, as he said, producing at scale is the hard part. And he is not wrong. I mean they produced, what they're about, well let's just call it a million cars a year now, I think right. But the German economy, fine, that might take it to one and a half million. Okay, but they're trying to get out of China. So some of that one million that's kind of baked in there, some of that will actually reduce. If he's got to, he's got to spend 5.5 billion to make a factory that will produce 500,000 cars to hit 10 million right longer term he's going to need 20 of these factories. That's going to be the equivalent of $110 billion, just to build the production to, you know, capacity to deliver at scale. And bear in mind that, you know, fine they might sell a car for whatever, whatever they cost 70 grand, 100 grand, whatever model all right they're going to produce cheaper ones as well but bear in mind the cost that goes into production. That's things at the moment aren't particularly high so I guess what I'm trying to say is for Tesla to try and compete on scale with the mega caps like Volkswagen, I still don't buy it. And check, watch out for Twitter, any tweets from Musk now the share price is back above 1000 bucks. Wonder where he's going to send out any new polls on Twitter. Guys, guys, should I sell another 10% of my steak? What do you think? I'll do whatever you say. Well, you know, well his brother need to keep an eye on his brother in that case. That's right. If he starts dumping, you know something's coming. But what's interesting, I put out in our newsletter on I think it was Wednesday when, when this happened. And I was looking at those good charts about the production. And actually, for 2022, it's like more than half is approximately 60% of the production of vehicles coming out of Shanghai. Yeah, obviously at the moment, there's kind of big worries again because of COVID and the zero tolerance policy and the impact that's going to have now meaning that they're going to have to follow that through and is it going to Well, I was, I was talking to Shao this morning. So he's the guy heads up amplify in China and our offices in China are in Shanghai. And now as of this week, they're now back into full lockdown, working from home. I know these big factories are they've gone into bubble bubble mode again. It's obviously a big problem for anybody manufacturing anything in China. And, you know, as we were talking about in previous episodes, it's going to accelerate the, you know, the supply chain strategy change. Yeah, big global corporate it's just got to move out China. And on that point, Larry think he's the CEO and chairman of BlackRock. He said that Russia's invasion of Ukraine is reversing the long running trend of globalization. Right. And that's something you've talked about many times before this this end of globalization. Yeah, so you've got Russia now you've had China already. Yeah, it's peaked peaked. I don't know. Well, yeah, I guess Trump and China, the trade war was probably triggered the beginning of the decline. I think it's so really globalization peaked pre Trump, I would say. And now it's on a slide and that that trend of reversing globalization that's a very, that's a big ship right to turn that thing around. Almost impossible. This is all very, very reminiscent of that big cycle analogy of Ray Dahlia. This is just a slow gradual shifting of powers you go back you reverse then this open trade and global sense back to nationalistic. But it's right. He's right on the difficulty is with Ray Dahlia. It's, he's right. I mean, his history tells you that he's right. And most like I should say most likely is right, because he's obviously trying to predict the future so there's always uncertainty with that but it's such a mega long term cycle. But picking the timing of how that cycle shift is going to have an impact on economies or businesses. You know the timing of that and it could be that you go he might be right but it could be it could be could be 20 years for this to kind of play out. So, rather than, I guess, we're so short termists, we always think there's got to be some kind of monster major tipping point. And look, sometimes there is right, but often there isn't a major tipping points just more of a slow gradual grind. And it's been happening for years already just a lot of people I'm quite noticed or realized. Well, let's, let's pivot to Apple, what they've been up to. Because I know you've got a few, few thoughts on that and Apple acquires the UK based fintech startup credit kudos who uses machine learning. So whenever I hear that type of jargon. I'm always a Vic. What exactly is that specifically because these words do get bounded about bounded about what it means is the valuation you just add another 10 to the valuation that's what that means. So what's what's the deal here then what have they done and you know what what's the purpose of this acquisition. Yeah, well, Apple, Apple got, I guess, in some ways an unusual acquisition strategy compared to perhaps they are their kind of big tech rivals in that they don't, they never make big giant, you know, multi multi multi multi billion dollar deals. They never do that. They always tend to buy little guys little small teams to kind of bring in, and they're often quite secretive about it. Apple now they don't really say why they've acquired that small company there or this team they pulled out of that company there they never really explain why. Especially it's always about them bringing in some kind of capability that that is a plug in to the iPhone, and therefore a plug into their whatever billion users, how many, how many users of Apple got I always forget actually they don't tend to talk about it much but anyway, billions right or. So it's about, you know, bringing in a product to plug in and give the iPhone user more, and this is just the same right. It's a purchase as a UK company, but it's a relatively small purchase compared to the size of Apple I mean, but it's about it's about by now pay later. This is the game that Apple now want to slap on top of their Apple pay, I have to say, this has been a long time coming, I'd say Apple have been a bit slow in kind of moving down that pathway Apple page been around for years but it's only now that they're looking to bring on that capability of being able to rate someone's credit. I was going to say credibility, that's not the right word that they're kind of credit rating is what I want to say right rate, it's to measure someone's credit rating. I don't know if that's an individual that they would like to offer a buy now pay later option, when they're purchasing something on their iPhone. Okay so they're entering the buy now pay later, you know that's huge. There's a, this is a crowded space already let's not forget you know planner after pay PayPal do it now as well right this is a big very competitive space and Apple have got a few billion users and Apple pays really successful and everyone buys everything on their iPhone right and so you know Apple can step into this market and really have an impact and take a big market share. So that's that that's their angle makes sense right credit QDOS I mean there. It's about. It's it's it's fintech. It's a fintech disruptor for measuring someone's credit worthiness. It's not about you know historically it was like looking at your bank statement, looking at your previous lending, we've got any loans is looking at utility bills and kind of old school stuff like that and actually the problem with that it's very old. So the credit rating is being based on someone's sort of financial situation 60 days ago. And the argument is that when a lot can change in 60 days and my position 60 days ago might be very different to where I am now and so it's kind of outdated and so these love come in, and others in this kind of fintech space and it's, and it's actually using the open banking, which I don't know if you've heard about but basically there's this thing back in 2018 I think it was the UK government made a new legislation, forcing the single open banking, which basically it was new rules that require UK banks to share their current account holder data, share it to third parties, including challenger banks fintech firms tech companies credit reference agencies right now when I read it like that you're thinking what the hell, the government is forcing banks to share my financial information with third parties. No thanks. Right. And this is why it hasn't ever really got off the ground from banking was supposed to be this, this way of making or giving access to kind of new challenger fintech products give them give them access to the market wasn't a fair level playing field. You know, the problem was here in the UK no one ever changes their bank, you don't change who you bank with. I've banked with the same bank since I opened the bank account when I was like 10. Right. People just don't change banks you just lazy right it's not something that's necessarily on your to do list. So the regulator considered that to be unfair that these banks had a monopoly on the because if you want to if you want to loan right well hang on my bank can I get an overdraft on my bank yeah okay great that's my loan right so that these banks had an unfair kind of market share so this open banking thing was supposed to be right let's really disrupt this and let's give the data out and then other products and services can come in and offer you, you know, better terms on on an overdraft type facility right and your bank does so this was the whole idea but of course it's never really taken off yet at least because well it's just about data isn't it and people aren't comfortable sharing data and especially especially your financial data right there's different types of data and this is kind of right up there as perhaps one of the more uncomfortable kind of data sets that you want to be kind of flying around out there in the ether to who knows who right it's been a very slow burner but these these guys are kind of in amongst trying to exploit that legislation and anyway Apple have tapped into it but the other side to this story I just wanted to touch on possibly a ticking time bomb is the buy now pay later. I mean, it's now, it's now right commonplace right it's it's everywhere. Here's a good stat on Black Friday 2021, which is one of the biggest shopping, the biggest retail day of the year and the November. It's all about these deals right and it's all about online and there was a 400% increase in 2021 of purchases using buy now pay later than in 2020. So you're on a 400% growth rate of usage and that is great on the one hand for the consumer great I can spread my, I can spread my costs without any interest. But the problem is, seven out of 10 by now pay later customers have faced late payment fees, or interest rate charges because they haven't been able to pay the split payments and some of the interest rates on these like 30%. So, basically it's just fueling another kind of credit boom. And like, thinking in quite a sinister fashion, these technology companies are gearing up to target certain social economic situations where they know that they can sell these products to these types of people and so we're in a situation now in the UK where inflation is a 30 year high. And, you know, life is getting as challenging as it's been since like the 1970s consumer confidence is crashing. The outlook on personal finances and data came out in the UK this week is the lowest since the financial crisis. The accessibility of being exposed to these adverts now, like everyone has a phone, like it's just standard smartphone issue these days. And it's people's, I guess, ability to be able to just switch off from that but it's so powerful the algorithms that drive these, these tech marketing strategies. It's almost so passive and subconscious. And it's the vulnerable people that are going to get the pain here and it's coming at a really bad time for most. Well, I'm talking British people right now as we know with what the situation is happening. So, yeah, I think you're right. I think it's, I think that's unhealthy that payment spreading. And it's also from it from what I don't like as well as and this is just sounding like an old man now and it's my birthday tomorrow. I'm going to be almost 40. So just let me say it, I'm going to sound like an old man. But back back in my day, right. When I was at university during the war, during the war. If I wanted something nice, right, either couldn't buy it. Yeah. Or I'd have to work and I'd have to wait for six months or something to buy it. Like a pair of Nike Max were 100. They're 150 now. They were 100 back during the war. So, but like as a student 100 pounds of money, whereas now if I could split that to 20 pounds over X period, it's like, it's just like, I'll buy two pairs. Yeah, it's just the whole the management then of the psychology of how you manage your personal finances starts to become slightly warped, I think, and then, yeah, I just. You also get, look, it's about discipline, isn't it? Discipline with money. And some people are really disciplined with money and some people definitely are not disciplined with money. It's just their nature, their personality, whatever they're living day by day and it's like, oh my God, I only have to pay 20 quid to get these shoes now. Great, I'll buy two pairs actually. Great, perfect without quite stopping and thinking, hang on, what does that mean for my monthly outgourds in a month and two months and three months. So one of the things here as well is that, you know, we work in ed tech, but when was the last time your daughter said to you I had this really great lesson today at school where they taught me about personal finances. And like where do they teach that like where do we educate young people. So we're throwing these options at them. Upscaling technology, because corporations will growth and want to make more money. And yet our education is the same as it has been for like 100 years. Yeah, just makes no sense. Yeah, it's never been easier to get into financial trouble. Yeah, and a lot of people will and I guess there's a bit of a negative feedback with that by now paying later thing if you do start missing payments well then that kind of snapped back and has a negative impact on your credit rating. Right, so then your ability to access credit. Next time goes down and then you're left with these huge interest rate payments and it can get out of control very quickly so yeah what what a weird scenario. Like back in your youth, actually only buying something that you could afford. That's a very strange concept. Or now or I did see on Selfridges, you can hire a designer clothes by the hour. You're serious. Just, you know, just get me the get your get a good camera, get a good angle and then we're done. Well, you know, there's I mean there's businesses making opportunities out of this so credit to them but look what you mentioned data and I wanted to mention something else on the data front that I thought was very interesting this week. And that was snap snap have acquired next mind and you've probably never heard of next mind they're a Paris based neuro tech company. So just to give this a bit of context before joining snap next mine developed. This is an important differential from Tesla and some of the sub companies that they have a neural link and so forth, because next mine has developed a non-invasive brain computer interface. It's called BCI. In order to enable users hand free interaction using electronic devices so your computer and namely your, your augmented virtual reality wearables and obviously snapper in that space I think they're already on their third or fourth generation goggles. The technology basically monitors neural activity. So understanding your in your intent when interacting with a computer interface allowing you to kind of operate stuff by simply just focusing on it but but you caught a really great line right from the CEO snap on the press release. Well yeah on his press release the line was was announcing this acquisition. He added and stressed that it does. It was like don't worry though guys, it does not read thoughts or send any signals towards the brain. He had to very specifically clear that up at the acquisition launch, which in my mind is like well hang on. Straight away my alarm bells. I don't know the science here, but they've meant they've explicitly said the technology monitors neural activity surely a thought is a neural activity, and it has a code. And what they've said is basically that this technology of looking at brain activity patterns in a neural sense is not new, but they've figured out a way to decode these brain signals into software commands. Yeah. That sounds to me like it's reading my thoughts because how else would it work right because so one simple example of how this will work is you look at the screen, and you press a button on the screen so rather than clicking on it. You actually don't you just think I want to click that button and then it clicks right so obviously that's reading your mind. Yeah. I can't actually tell the difference here but the thing I was to loop this back. Can you imagine how rich that pool of data is. You basically know what everyone's thinking. What everyone's thinking like now that is data like and that scares me to a whole nother level of. Well, I actually think this is an acquisition. It's not for today. Yeah, this is like this to early stage, the world is not ready for this. The world is definitely not ready for the idea of me putting on some glasses and a big tech firm reading my thoughts were not ready for that. And who's to say we're not going to be ready for that in 10 years time. We probably will write the way things are the direction of travel. It's just today is so early concept. So it might be one of those acquisitions for the future. Yeah, I'm very wary about this. I'll cancel that that early Christmas present I was going to get you know. We did buy some snap. We did we did actually we bought the first as a company we we have you know we'd have all our summer trainee analysts with us this was you know many years ago when this when they first came out. And we thought wouldn't it be quite funny to just have because we used to have social events and stuff like that that we just pass it around. And we just film it and like first person. And to be fair it was like, it was funny on the day we got it. Yeah, and then it just sat in its box for the following. Literally put in the draw. Yes. But look we'll see. All right, well look to finish I think I already touched there a little bit about the UK. And yeah this morning I saw on Twitter. Sainsbury's was trending. And whenever you see stuff like that you're like what Sainsbury's is trending so given I spend a bit of time on Twitter clicked on it. And it's just flooded with pictures of our UK Chancellor Rishi Sunak. And I don't know if it if you've seen it but he was filling what what was I guess supposed to be his Kia Rio, which is not the top of the range vehicle. And that the media is obviously very quick to jump on the fact that he's obviously married into a to a billionaires. And he's there filling up his 15k car at Sainsbury's and and he went to pay for it. And he went to scan his credit card on the bar code reader. And it was pretty funny but actually the car ended up it was actually he borrowed it from a Sainsbury's worker just for the photo. But yeah, I mean that the reason why this has happened, it always happens. It's almost like a routine thing after a budget. And this week we had the spring statement from the Chancellor. The same thing happened to Osborne. I don't if you remember, he got snapped in Byron burger. So if you're from London, Byron burger was a classic boom bus story. I don't know if they still exist anymore but they were everywhere for a point. And this was when burgers weren't like this was they weren't common as like a cool thing to go and have a burger. So they were quite at the forefront. It was a 10 pound burger, which was expensive. This was the first one to come out before honest burger and all the rest of it. George Osborne bought a Byron burger and then put it in some different packaging. And he got absolutely rumbled the day after the budget as well. So it's a very common thing. I think the media go go hell for leather for it. I think it's a good example of how the media spin things right one of the key things about his budget. He made a few changes but one of the headline things was he cut fuel duty by five pence because he wants to help out in this fuel crisis. So he got a photo op linked to promote his five pence off fuel duty right so that's this that's unlike from a marketing PR kind of strategy thing actually that's quite a good idea. You know this will get in this will be all over the press and it'll really shine a great light on the good that we've done here by cutting fuel duty right that's the idea but of course, the press just take it. They just spin it and they spin it and it becomes this kind of hilarious situation where he's being ridiculed. I mean, but yeah it's a cheap car it's not his right from a rich family, blah blah blah cocks up going into pay for it. Basically showing that he never pays for anything. It's not particularly good filling up a car either in this kind of green EV trends that the government are trying to steer us down so he's at the petrol station. Yeah, so there's a few things I could see the idea from his strategist but yeah it was just, it's just too good, too good material for the journalist not to just jump all over it. I just had a quick look now what what car does he actually have that couldn't find it but he strikes me as I can ask the Martin kind of guy. All right well on that note. Thanks Pierce will wrap it up there for this episode. As ever, I'll drop a couple of links into the show notes to subscribe to our daily newsletter. I had some really great feedback from a couple of people because I send out myself at the end of every European trading day and just to say it is me that sends it. I've had some people reply saying, can you tell Anthony that you know I really appreciate this and I was like no it is me who writes it. We're not quite that big yet where I deploy my marketing minions to like write stuff for me I'm not that important yet. Feel free as well on the if you do engage with the daily newsletter if you ever have any questions for me specifically just shoot a reply like absolutely happy to help. And I'll, anyone who's not subscribed I'll drop the link in the show but Pierce have a great weekend and I'll catch you next week. Yep, have a good one happy birthday 40 already. Not yet. All right, cheers guys.