The following is a presentation of TFNN. The Trader's Edge with Steve Rhodes. At 1-877-927-6648 or internationally. At<PHONE_NUMBER>. The Trader's Edge. Now, Steve Rhodes. Good morning, folks. Welcome to the February 29th, the terrific Thursday edition of today's Trader's Edge show. I'm your host, Steve, Perseverance Rhodes, who absolutely knows that each of us should always be pioneers of our future versus prisoners of our past. Hope everyone out there's having a great day. Let's make sure we have an extraordinary one. Now, the easiest way to do that, to always remember that life is happening for us, not to us. That's right. When you and I make that one little two-by-four shift, it means we can find the gift in every set of circumstances that life is going to toss at us. Now, today, you and I, we're going to go check on the circumstance of these markets. We'll go figure out what those bulls and bears, what those buyers and sellers are communicating to you and I at just past 11 o'clock in the morning. I want you to know I'm absolutely grateful for your presence here, but even more important than that. And that's this. During this next 53 minutes, I am here to serve you. So feel free to pick up that phone. We'd love to hear from you.<PHONE_NUMBER>. Now, if you've got a question which you can't go in, we've got you covered. You can always send me an email. Send that off to Steve at tfn.com and inside the subject heading, subject heading, please put radio show question. Of course, if you're inside our Tiger's Den, well, then any in every ping will do. So let's go ahead and get this show started on terrific Thursday. Of course, this is Tiger Financial News Network. I'm Steve Rhodes. Welcome to the show. Well, we've got a little bit of a sea of green right now. The Dow just turning positive. It's up five points. Joining the other US indices that are trading to the upside. S&Ps up 14 points. Nasdaq 188. Russell's up 18. Semi's up 73. Gold's up 12 bucks. Silver's up 16 cents. Like we could up six penny. Natural gas is flat. The 30 year treasury printed out 1912. The leader in the clubhouse to the upside is super micro computer up 56 bucks. We're going to take a look at that during the show with Steve or for Steve Woods. We'll take a look at his float indicator there. Duolingo up 43 bucks 22%. Now I've never used the app, but I do have a granddaughter, youngest granddaughter has been teaching herself Japan, Japanese on that. It's really pretty cool. Very eight years old. Just decided to pick this up last year. Micro strategy up 36 bucks or 4%. Oaked up 17 bucks 20%. And Vidya is up 15 bucks, about 2%. To the downside, it's Snowflake. CEO is leaving down 43 bucks. That's a 20% move. Our Genix SE down 24 bucks or 6%. Regeneron down 15 bucks. Viking therapeutics up 15. Bank of Montreal down 13 bucks. It's a 4% move there. So let's go take a look at what you want to look at. What do you want to look at? Let's go take a look at. Let's go see what we've got going on here in the daily equity future contract. So we know that as of our last set of swing points, let's go take a look at this daily timeframe. Let us set of swing points out here. Major swing points on a daily timeframe would be the July 27th high. And then the low would be the October 27th low. If we take a look at that and apply our Fibonacci expansion, you can see we're just sitting right at the 1.618 expansion level of that set of swing points. 5091 is the number we're at 5091 right now. Price is above the top of its barest structured daily profile. That's a positive. If there's any negative that I would see out here, I see one, two, three, four bars with lower lows. But today we have spiked a bit higher out there. What does that mean? Well, right now, what price is doing, it's testing at 5105. You can write that down in your pad of paper. 5105 is that green oscillator change line. If price were to close above that today, not that the ESMini is not bullish, but it would get to all out bullish mode out there. There'd be no traffic. There'd be no resistance point is really what I should say. So that's the ESMini out there. What's its next price projection level? 5309. If we take a look at the NQ, I don't have the expansion levels on here right now. The reason is because we've got a roadsman to mitigate our top. And that's at the 18040 level. There was a bear sash candle that formed a couple of days ago. By the way, my apology for being unable to host a show yesterday. Internet issues was down until about 430, something like that. I'm still actually having some issues in the house now. So we got real wireless issues, but luckily I'm wired hard in. So a programming note, I will be unable to host a show tomorrow. So I'll be back with you live on Monday. Nothing internet related. I'm going to go play with my one of my youngest out there and roll around on the floor and just have a blast with him for the weekend. So with regard to the NQ, watch 18040-25. The price closes above that. We're headed higher. Otherwise, it still has its roadsman to mitigate our top. Now, the interesting thing about yesterday's activity and today's activity, price had closed above the top of this bear structure daily profile for more than two sessions. It began that close above it on February 22nd. It remained above it for four sessions. Then we get that bear sash candle. That bear sash candle yesterday creates the roadsman to mitigate our top and closes just below the top of that profile. Old resistance typically becomes new support. But in this case here, we know that counter trend moves. And I can only tell you that right now as of 11-11, the activity we've seen inside of the NQ over the last four days has been nothing more than just a counter trend move. And the reason that we conclude that is because all counter trend rallies will typically end at the center of that bearish structure daily profile once you close above it. I hope that makes sense to you. I can just give you the load out here. 17-793. If you see a close below the NQ, I'll say tomorrow, today, not likely. But if you do see a close below that, then this is telling us something else. Now that something else might just take price back to 17-531. So the two numbers to watch on the NQ, just cut to the chase, Debo. 18-040, 25, and 17-793. Those are the numbers that you need to know for the NQ and that will assist you in which direction it decides that it really wants to move. Now we take a look at the Dow equity future contract. We do have, it does not have a top in place. No topping pattern. I can't say, you know, it doesn't have a topping pattern. As a top, I don't know. I don't have a topping pattern out here. What we do have is price trade above the top of this daily profile. Old resistance. Yesterday, today has shown that it is new support. It's beyond the 1.618 expansion of its last set of swing points. So the Dow equity future contract says it wants to get up to that 40,116 level. Now let's take a look at that Russell 2000 equity future contract. One heck of a nice rally. But how strong is that trend line out there? Price right back below it right now. Look, it's got a, the key number here for the Russell to the upside is going to be 2097. The price were to close above that. Geez, that could actually set up a gigantic A to B equal CD to upside. That is not the pattern that we have right now. That's your top 2097. A secondary top is that trend line. And that has a, that has a, so what I watch for is if the Russell were to close a day above 2065, that's my best guesstimate right now because I don't, I can't really put an exact number, but it looks like about 2065. If price close above, you know, I can tell you, this looks like a dark cloud covered candle to me. It didn't close all the way in there. I'll just leave it like that. 2065, you get to close about 2065 odds favor the move to 2097 out there. So that's what I see when I take a look at the daily equity future contract. Just curious how we trade in the other currencies out there. And a new all-time highs, 4033, we're at 4032. No, no, no new all-time highs in the other currencies as I see them just yet. So now what do we want to do out here? What do we want to do? I'll tell you what we'll do. Let's go take a look at some of the intraday charts. So let's switch panels here. And we're also going to have to get over to that chart and fire it up. If you give me a moment, we'll go to the white back. Well, you know what? We're coming to a break. Let's do this. We come back to this break. We've got, I believe, a couple of questions from, that was supposed to be yesterday morning for Jay and Boca firm, POWW. Then we're going to take a look at AI, MARA, SMCI, AMD, Lightsweed Crude. And we'll keep those rolling too. Steve Rhodes with TFNN, we'll be right back. If you're looking for potential trading setups in the stock market, then Rocket Equities and Options Report is a newsletter you should try. Tommy O'Brien delivers options and equity trades when the markets present them using a combination of fundamentals and technicals. Sign up for Rocket Equities and Options Report today with a 30-day money-back guarantee so you have nothing to risk. For all the details and to start your subscription today, visit the front page of TFNN.com. TFNN Educating Investors. 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Steve's award-winning newsletter, Mastering Probability, is delivered every trading day with updates throughout the afternoon. Sign up for Steve's Market newsletter, Mastering Probability and you'll receive access to seven of Steve's educational webinars absolutely free. TFNN, all our newsletters come with a 30-day money-back guarantee so you have absolutely nothing to worry about. Visit TFNN.com and try Mastering Probability 30 days risk-free today. TFNN Educating Investors. For just one dollar for the year, there's no catch or added costs when you join our community of traders. Sign up today and become a part of this educational community of traders, just visit the front page of TFNN.com. Toll free at 1-877-927-6648. Internationally at<PHONE_NUMBER>. Back charts up for Affirm AFRM, by the way, is the ticker symbol out there. We've got the Daily, the Weekly and the Monthly. This is for Jay in a Boca Raton out here. So Jay, thanks for waiting an extra day on this. I believe we didn't get to it on Tuesday out there. So we take a look at Affirm right now. What do we have out here? Right now I just have a consolidation with Insight and Staley Profile. So the level of support would be at 37.06, the level of resistance would be between 40.52 and 42.83, with there being also resistance up at the 42.20, let me make sure I get that right, 42.22 level. So do I have any kind of a bottom signal out here on Affirm? So the bottom signal would have to be this Jay, and that is that price got back to the breakout level at 37.25. And getting back to a breakout level, you do see a TD9 count out here, but it was bar number six that made that low. To me that doesn't qualify as a bottoming pattern out here, but you do have that breakout level. It's been tested and it's pretty much held for the most part. So what price would have to do is, price would have to, on the daily base, have to close up 39.01, to suggest that it wants to go take on where those sellers are at at the 40.52 and 42.83. They're sellers by the way right here at 39.01. Weekly chart, TD9 count with a consolidation inside its profile levels out here. So 34.12 at support, 49.42 at resistance. Monthly chart looks pretty good, although on a monthly basis, we close out the month today. We are closing bill last month's low. So that's not a great sign out there. So I would suggest here, if you look at our product, I didn't write down anything else, any other details. I don't recall if you gave me any other details. But if you're looking to enter this, I'd be watching the 34.12 area, probably more than anything else. So that's what we see when we take a look at a firm. You also want to take a POWW. So let's pull that set of charts up on the screen. I'm POWW right now trading at about 236. You'd love to see this close a day above 237. If it did that, that would be telling you its intent to go target its most recent swing point. Now that recent swing point, pretty wide ranging, runs from 245. So you'd love to see it close above 245 all the way up to 273. Now volume there was 1.6 million shares. Today you're trying to push into it with 167,000 shares. So way light on the volume standpoint. Nonetheless, POWW trading above the top of its daily profile. If it can close above 237, that's its green-acid and change line. It should go retarget those recent highs. The weekly chart looks bullish as well, with price above resistance levels. Those being basically a 218. And in the case of the monthly timeframe chart, nothing bearish here that I see. Price just trading with inside its profile as well. So Jay, thank you for waiting an extra day for your review of POWW. And Affirm. Jim writes in and he wants to take a look at AI. So let's pull those stock charts up here. And Jim was looking for resistance levels. Jim C. Well, first what pops up on my screens out here is your next resistance level is 4490. Now that's on the weekly chart, by the way. That's a TD9 count breakdown level. Why does DB come up with that as a conclusion? Well, first of all, we're trading above all of the most recent swing points. So that would be number one, wide-ranging bar. We're trading above green-acid and change on the weekly basis. It'll close above 3081 tomorrow. It's going to be all out bullish conditions. So 4490 is the weekly next level of resistance out here. On a daily timeframe, it's at 4068. That's its TD9 count breakdown resistance level out there. Now, what do we see? I see pretty much a consolidation breakout that's going on here. When we take a look at the daily timeframe, if we draw in the approximate consolidation pattern, I'm not going to worry about being on a right. So the bottom is pretty easy to line up here. That's easy. And I'd say the top, pretty much right there. Right about here. So now what we've got is a consolidation measured move for AI. That's the breakout today. And so if we take a look at this, we're just simply going to add this to about right here. And that's going to give. So it tells us where this wants to go target. So usually when you break a consolidation, Jim, what an instrument will do is make a measured move equal to or greater than the actual measured move. So we know we got resistance on the daily and the weekly in that 40-ish dollar area. This has us getting up towards the 43 level, which really gets us back into the swing point on a daily basis from back in August of 2023 out there. So you were looking for resistance levels. I think that's what I provided to you. 45.03 on the monthly base would be the AI resistance level as well. You also wanted to take a look at Mara. M-A-R-A is a ticker symbol. So let's pull that up and see what we have going on here. Now this has a new profile that is forming today and price is trading inside it right now. That new profile has supported 2381. Now as far as tops are concerned, it had a Rosemont Dominicator signal that's been triggered. Believe it or not, we still don't have the bearish reversal candle, but we are trading now back below that greenhouse pattern change on inside the profile. So the first level to watch today, Mara, is going to be, Mara, Jim, is going to be 2610. That's assuming that price closes below that. If price closes below that, that becomes your first resistance level. You were looking for resistance. If price closes above that, resistance is maybe around 2731. It's greenhouse pattern change on above that 2918 out there. When I look at the weekly timeframe chart, the weekly timeframe chart at the moment, not that we don't even need it at the moment, the weekly timeframe chart has a TD9 account top, a Rosemont Dominicator top, but price has not been, it's had those for a while. Price has not been able to bust through any real key levels of support. So the next area of support on a weekly timeframe for Mara on a move lower is going to be 2273. Resistance on a move higher is going to be at the 3130 level. The monthly timeframe chart, so this is going to be important for you to watch, Jim. We just talked about, I don't recall the instrument. I don't recall the instrument at the top of my head. That's how good my mind is, isn't it? But we talked about the barest structured profile. This is the opposite. Time frame doesn't matter. Bowler structured profile. Price closed below it for many, many months. If the move is only a counter trend move inside of Mara, where would it find resistance at the center? Where is the center? 3135. It's tested that this month. It tested it two months ago. That's your strong resistance level. So if you want to really know where Mara is going to go ahead and have a big old party and invite everybody, it would be a monthly close above 3135 out there. So right now I'd have to say, it looks like to me this wants to pull back 2381, 2273. That would be the range that I would be looking at. So I hope that helped you out, Jim. Thanks so much for the request. Stevie Woods of the Woods Float Indicator out there. Watch the take. Look at SMCI. That's our leader in the clubhouse, by the way. A dollar-wise, the upside, a $49 move up nearly about 6%. But when we take a look at it, what is it actually doing out here? Great question. Well, it's trading above the top of its profile. So, Stevo, 785.36 is going to be a level of support on any move lower. Your first resistance level in the daily time frame is at 900.71. That is the green-octane change line. That is the level, even though it's up 48 bucks and even though it's a 6% move, that's off of yesterday. 900 and change. Let's call it 902. A close-up of 902 would get this thing really bullish because it would be above all-profile resistance. It would be above its ossiter and change line resistance. Then the next upside target would be this bearish engulfing candle out here from the trading session of February 16th. And that resistance level is the high, which is at 1,077.87. Let me open this up. Just a tad, pull this back. See if there's anything else out here worth noting on the daily time frame. The answer is no. On a weekly time frame, you've got a rogement indicator top of price above... It's neutral. Price above profile resistance, its ossiter and change line. It's all out bullish on the monthly time frame. We come back with this break. I'm going to go ahead and put the float indicator chart up so that Steve can take a click at it and try to get the folks to the signal to correct zero for TFF. As a precious metal, gold is still king. It continues to hold the most effective safe haven and hedging properties across the global major trading hubs of the London OTC market, the US futures market, and the Shanghai Gold Exchange. The Gold Report. Tom O'Brien publishes his weekly Gold Report every Monday morning for subscribers consisting of coverage of the XAU, HUI, GDX, the Dollar, Bonds, the South African Rand, as well as 25 different mining equities with specific buy-sell recommendations. The Gold Report. New subscribers get a 30-day money-back guarantee so you have nothing to risk. Subscribe to Tom O'Brien's Gold Report newsletter now at TFNN.com Sharpening your skills as an investor is like getting better at playing a musical instrument. You have to practice, sure, but you also need excellent instruction from experts. At TFNN, you'll get advice and guidance from the authority in technical market analysis, and it's not just dry, tedious text either. 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Join us live Monday through Friday during market hours for exclusive content that moves with the markets. At TFNN, we bring the trading floor to you. Our seasoned hosts are here to answer your calls and questions live on the air. Check out the Tiger's Den for just $1 and follow us on YouTube and become part of our vibrant community. And remember, at TFNN, we're so confident in the value we provide that we offer a 30-day money-back guarantee on all new premium newsletters, subscriptions, and services. You have absolutely nothing to risk, so why wait? Tune in live to Tiger TV and transform your trading journey because when you know better, you invest better. Join us and experience the difference today. TFNN Educating Investors. Folks, so the chart that I'm showing here is the daily chart for SMCI. The indicator that's out here, pretty cool. Some of you may know Steve Woods. He's the one that's developed this float. Turnover channel indicator. That's what that purple area here. So it's a tool that's on the eSignal system, but it wasn't working properly. So Steve asked me if I could post this chart so he could see what's going on. So there you go, Steve-O, and hopefully they've corrected what it was you were looking for. The next request that came in is AMD. That is for G-Man inside the Tiger's Den. For those charts, we're going to go back to our white background charts. Take a look at those daily, weekly, and monthly timeframes. Get a feel for what is going on here. So we take a look at AMD. The question is, will this continue to move northward? And the answer to that is blowing in the wind. Looks like the answer test. We speak right now at 1131. The answer is yes. Why do we say the answer is yes? Well, first, we're trading above the top of its daily profile. The top of that profile is 18163. Second, we're trading above the top of its Roseman Dominicator top. That was from February 23rd. That high is 183.80. That's the most important level right now for you to watch G-Man 183.80. If price closes above that, then this is a move to the upside. Now there is a swing point that it's also dealing with here. Let me just open this up. I don't know if that was a sell the D point. Yeah, that was also a... But it wasn't a bearish reversal candle. So it's just a swing that has volume right now. It has volume right now. It's not going to change, Steve-O. That was back on January 20th. Don't you just love the intelligence that sometimes I display? I know it just cracks the, you know, out of me. But that event out here, if we take a look at that high, is at 184.92. And it's important, but the more important high for us right now is really going to be that high from the dark cloud cover that 183.80. But to answer your question, you close them up those things out there and it would suggest that it wants to move higher. If we take a look at the weekly timeframe, the weekly timeframe does not have a top and price trade above its weekly profile. So tomorrow, and I won't be able to be with you tomorrow to take a look at this, we can on Monday, but a close tomorrow of 179.80 is another bullish outcome. Of course, closing above its swing high and that's the swing from January 26th and that high out there was at 184.92. That would be a beautiful thing. And the monthly basis, everything, you know, you're going to close the month. It appears with a close above last month's high. It's just simply bullish. Daily, weekly, monthly timeframe. So the only thing I could get in the way is some kind of intraday chart that shows some kind of topping pattern. Again, this is getting ready for a retracement or pullback. Well, the 30 minute timeframe chart doesn't have that pattern. Yep. So we don't have anything there to be worried about at this stage. How about the 65 minute timeframe chart? You don't see anything there. We'll just try one more, which would be that 130. Again, we use these timeframes, may seem odd to you, but if you think about it, reality is a 390 minute session. If you want to do true technical analysis, each bar should basically be the same timeframe. And that's why at 130, there's 330 minute bars in a day inside the indices and inside the stocks out there that we trade. So let's just skip this back to a 30 minute chart and let's move on. So G-Band, help that help answer your question with regard to is there an upward movement continuation? It will be revealed to you at day Zen, but right now the answer is absolutely. John C inside the Tigers, they want to take a look at light sweet crude. So let's pull up the multi timeframe charts for light sweet crude. Give me a moment. We'll get there. And here we're going to have daily, weekly, monthly. And the shortest intraday type here that I have here is the heck. What the heck's going on? Oh, I see. I'm like, what the heck's going on in my 30 minute chart? That's because it wasn't updated. There we go. Okay. So on a monthly basis, right now, John, on a monthly basis, light sweet crude is dealing with a potential resistance level. And if you can close above, we're talking today. And that level is at $79.31. If price glows above $79.31, that's going to suggest that we should rally further, with $80.13 being a bit of a battleground and $86.17 being another battleground. That's the monthly, the weekly timeframe chart. It looks bullish because we're trading above a green oscillator and change line and it's profiles. That says it wants to head higher. So what's the holdup here? The holdup is really the daily timeframe chart. And then the daily timeframe chart right now, price is trading above the top of that daily probe, about $78.43. But there's a trend line that it's dealing with as well. We looked at that during that update. So you've seen that. So we don't have to review that. So it's just really running into some trend line resistance that if you can clear, and it really, you could draw that trend line. It's a simple one here. Just draw it from this high, this high being November 30th. Then to that next high out there, which is on the trading session of January 29th. That's your little trend line. If you get price to clear that out there, then it'll just simply confirm what the weekly and the daily timeframe charts are telling us. Inter-day wise on that 30 minute timeframe chart, what do we have here? Price to trade above profile, it's green oscillator and change line. It says it wants to head higher out there. So everything that we look at is saying that it would like to head higher. It's just that trend line. And I have no idea whether it's going to fail or not. But that's really what Lightspeed crude is dealing with as far as my eyes can see. So hope that helps y'all, John. And as always, thank you for taking the time to put in a request. Duncan Steve as well. We'd like to take a look at an instrument. Fortinet, FTNT is the instrument we're going to take a look at momentarily. Let's get those charts up on the screen. And we take a look at it. It is consolidating with inside its daily profile. It's rated into the sell zone, Steve. The sell zone, Steve. The sell zone is between $69.39 and $71.49. That oscillator and change line, you can see, boy, that is acted as a real key resistance level. So you know you need to see it close above that. It being $70.09. Of course, you were going to get a rally to be a little bit above that level. And then if it could close above that, you'd be looking at $71.49. Now, if we close below $69.39 today and we close below $69.39 tomorrow, Steve, I would say prepare for a move back to $65.20. And $65.20 is the bottom of its daily profile. That's what the message of the daily time frame chart is as we speak right now. The weekly time frame chart is simply bullish with price consolidating with inside its new profile. Its new profile has resistance at $70.52. It centers at $67.12. And the bottom is down at $58.64 out there. So you've got a bare structured profile. Resistance, again, $70.52. So you've got resistance on the daily. It's $70.08 or thereabouts. $70.52 on the weekly out here. And support at $65.20, $67.12, $64.07, and $58.64. That's what I see when I take a look at Fortinet or Fortnight, however you properly pronounce it. And the monthly chart just has a consolidation with inside its bullish structured profile. Oh, I take that back. The monthly chart for Fortinet is just simply all out bullish. Price is trading above. Closed above last month, the top of its profile. Looks like it's going to close above on a monthly basis. It's green oscillator and change line at $67.28. So it's just waiting for the daily chart to get its mojo. And can't tell you when that's going to happen, but it does look like it wants to get back to that $65.20 level out there. So I hope that helps answer your question. Let's go out to Robert in Kansas. Robert, thanks for calling. Thanks for holding. How are you today? I'm great to see you. Doing very well. Thanks so much for asking. And the Russell 2000, I believe, is the area that you want to take a look at. Tell the folks what you're doing and how I could best help. Now we're going to go to a break here, Robert, in about 20 seconds or so. So tell me what I can do to help you out. And then when we come back from the break, we'll see if we can see if I can fulfill that request. You bet. So I just wanted to kind of like back up and look at the bigger picture. Last week, you were thinking that like the major indexes were like a, you know, long term, they were going to be bullish, but you were expecting some type of pullback. Correct. And I wanted to kind of elaborate on that if you kind of go back to that point, specifically the IWM today and see, are you still thinking that or have you changed based on new information and what the market's doing this week? Perfect. Have you changed your, you know... Excellent. Excellent question. Excellent question. Thanks for teeing that up for me. We come back from this break. That's what we'll spend our time taking. Thanks, Robert, in Kansas City. Currencies, commodities, and bond markets are as important as ever right now with how they're driving the volatility in equity markets across the globe, which is why it's a great time to try out Teddy Kegstad's Tiger Forex Report. Teddy Kegstad breaks down the forex markets every Monday using his 30-plus years of experience as a trading veteran of futures, forex, stocks, and options. Teddy releases his weekly Tiger Forex report every Monday morning with coverage of all the major currency pairs, the Euro-dollar, Pound-dollar, Dollar-Swiss, Dollar-yen, as well as many more, and he also has weekly coverage of the crude oil market and the 30-year T-bonds as they both influence forex markets tremendously. When you sign up for the Tiger Forex Report, you also gain instant access to Teddy's 60-minute Webinar Archive. He just hosted Forex Strategies and Fundamentals What is Behind the Tiger Forex Report? For all the details and to start your 30-day Tiger Forex Report subscription today, visit the front page of TFNN.com. TFNN Educating Investors On stocks you need to pay attention to and you can trust Larry's analysis. After all, he's got 45 years experience as a day trader. Larry will also provide daily charts, videos, and data on the key markets that he's tracking. Expect notifications from Larry on market movement you need to act on at any time. 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The funds are designed to be utilized by sophisticated investors such as traders and active investors. Distributor for Side Fund Services, LLC. This program is brought to you by Vista Gold. Traded on the NYSE American and TSX under the symbol VGZ. Welcome back. The folks around the line with Robert in Kansas City, we're going to go take a look at the indices out there. The question is, does Stevie still believe that we are in for a short-term pullback? Short-term pullback, in my eyes would be one that lasts about four weeks long. So let's take a look at the Russell 2000. We take a look at the Russell 2000. Today it's testing its swing point from the all-time swing point high from December the 27th out there. That swing point did volume of 35 million shares. We got over it today. We're trading under it right now. The volume so far has been 18 million shares. Now we're about two hours into trading. So that's roughly about 54, 55 million share a day if this volume level, the first two hours, matches the last four hours out here or so, four and a half hours. So if we take a look at that again, 35 million versus we're at 18. So we're moving into this swing point with volume. What that tells me first, Robert, is even if we close below the bottom of that swing point, the bottom of that swing point from the trading day was December 27th, that low was 20340. If we close below 20340, odds favor that we're gonna get back up and at least test that level, 20340. Whether we get, you know, if we close inside that swing point, then that would tell us that price is gonna go at least test that high. So that's, and I see that also if I come off of that December high and I get to the next swing point that formed out here, we can see it forms a little bit of a trend line and so far price has rejected that. So what I'm not seeing here is a breakout inside the IWM. Before I move on to anything else, any questions about that, Robert? No, what I heard you say, you're not seeing a breakout, but potentially it may test that a few times and that'll tell us if it's a short-term top. Yeah, you know, that's a way to certainly frame it for sure. Since I don't see a breakout here, your question was do I still see a potential for a short-term top? And because we don't have a breakout in the IWM, my answer to that's gonna be yes, might take a look at the daily timeframe. Weekly timeframe, we have nothing more than consolidation right now inside its profile. If price were to close above 205.49 tomorrow, Robert, we might have a bit of a different take on that, but that would be the number to be taken a look at. The monthly chart looks very good. So the monthly chart gets back to the thought process that, you know what, after some type of pullback here, we start getting ready to move to the upside. That's the signals. And the reason why I say it on a monthly basis, folks, price trade above its green oscillator and change that to 190.24 and above the top of its profile, 190.290. So that looks bullish to me. It's not that the weekly chart has bearish or anything, it just has a consolidation inside its profile. But it's not the IWM, Robert. Sorry, because you called about the IWM and I wanted to go to that directly, I wanted to be able to answer your questions. It is not the IWM that I derive the conclusions from. Okay. So where I derive those conclusions from, we're more like the S&P, the Dow and the NDX100. If you don't have any other question about the IWM, I can throw those charts up and show you what I'm looking at. You bet. Absolutely. And you're right. I think you're referring to like the spy when they're having your discussion, but yeah, delve into that, please. Okay. So where did I put those charts? So the first chart, we're going to take like just the Dow and the S&P 500 daily, weekly and monthly, although why do I have daily, weekly up here twice for the Dow? Give me a second here. Obviously, Stevie did something wrong, but we're going to correct that. And then let me just put the proper template up here. So we're all looking at the proper thing all daily. Oops, that was the wrong thing. If you're short on time, you can just look at one of the indexes, the SS5, that works better for you. Yeah. Well, they're both up on the screen. They're really going to kind of show something similar. First, the question is, do we have a daily top? And the answer with regard to that inside the Dow Jones Cash Indice is yes. We have a roachment of indicator top. There was a bearish engulfing candle that took place about four trading sessions ago. So we've got a daily top in the Dow. We have a TD9 count top that's going to confirm tomorrow as long as price closes above 38, 654, 42. So the daily and weekly are saying, we're preparing for some type of pullback. As you know, we have pullbacks, they typically last two to four bars. That's where my four week comes into. Now four weeks is not going to come into play. In order for that to happen, the Dow must close below that greenhouse certain change line. That's currently printed at 38, 485. Getting back and testing and rejecting that keeps this thing still bullish. You can see even last week and the week before price got down, test that level and rejected it. So the weekly still has a top, but we need to see it close below that level. That level again right now today, 38, 485, that number is going to change. If we do get to see that, Robert, then that tells me the two, three, four week retracement is likely. The monthly chart is just simply all out bullish. And that's why it suggests that we should continue to move higher out there. I got you, Al, thanks. So that's on the Dow. If we take a look at the S&P 500, the S&P 500 has a wave number seven top. The only thing that negates that is a close, or is a take above the all time high. And that'd be at 51, 1106. If we look at the weekly chart for the spy, it also is going to form a TD nine count top as we complete that pattern next week. As long as price on tomorrow closes above 49, 58, 61. And on a monthly basis, it's all out bullish as well. So that's on the S&P and the Dow. If we take a look at the NASDAQ 100, this is the one we'll finish it off on, the NDX 100, if we take a look at this daily time frame chart, it has a wave number seven pattern. So that's the top. That pattern remains in effect as long as price is not tick above 18, 0, 91, 62. We have a TD nine count top that's going to complete tomorrow as long as price closes above 17, 6, 42, 73. And that monthly chart is all out bullish. That's how I come up with that conclusion out there. I do not see this as a major top period, period, period. How's that? Yeah, it would just be a short term pullback. At this stage, you know, I'm here to read, I'm here to read the opportunity. Yeah, I'm here to read the message of the markets. Things can change. And so right now that's what the charts are telling me. We are not at a major all-time high, but we should expect them to spate a pullback. And that pullback, you know, could, look, it could last four months, it could last three months too, but that's not what I see in the cards. Not today on David White's birthday, February 29th. So maybe we just end the day. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. You have a great long weekend. You bet. And thanks so much for the call. Ron and Denver has been waiting kindly. So let's go out to Ron. But we should expect that. Hey, Ron, turn that speaker off. That pullback, you know, it could last four months. Hello, Ron. Do we got Ron? Maybe just turn that sound off. So I know Ron is calling to talk about GRRR. So as soon as we get him on the line here, do we have him? Al? No, we don't. Okay. So let me, when we do, maybe just notify me that we've got Ron and we'll go take, oh, Ron, are you there? Yes, Steve. Thank you very much. My pleasure. I got to turn the speakers off in the background. We're getting reverb, so to speak. Okay, I apologize. Yeah, no problem. GRRR had good volume here. And I just wondered what the next target would be and what would I be looking for, volume? So you're trading at about 94 cents right now. The next level of resistance is 98 pennies. If you can get two consecutive closes above 98 cents, it's trading with inside a daily bullet-structured profile out there. That would signal to you and I want you to make a move up to a buck 30. It hasn't traded enough on the monthly timeframe to give me a ton of information, really nor so on the weekly timeframe. So just the daily, so it's a beautiful trade. It formed a nice TD9 count, Roadsman communicator bottom, TD9 count top, and now, Ron, the level to be watching is 98 cents and it should get up there and if you can close above that, a buck 30 is in the cards for you. Thank you very much. And one other question. IWM, I want to get you an opened up strong this morning, it's pulled back. Would this be a good entry point on IWM? We'll be right back. Steve Roads with Tia Pineda. You might think that if you want to be successful at trading in the stock market, you're going to need a crystal ball. After all, it's impossible to predict the future, right? Like any endeavor in life, before you decide it's impossible, get some advice from the experts. You might find that it's not so impossible after all. For daily market overviews that give you direction on the key indices, selective stocks, and commodities, subscribe to the opening call newsletter at tfnn.com. 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You have absolutely nothing to risk, so why wait? Tune in live to Tiger TV and transform your trading journey because when you know better, you invest better. Join us and experience the difference today. TFNN, Educating Investors. You might not have heard the conversation when I was on the phone and you were waiting for me to come on, but if you go back and you do the replay, I'm expecting anticipating some type of short-to-intermediate term top, something that could last about three to four weeks out there. Okay, I'm sorry. That's okay. I'll try and do that replay. I appreciate your comments. Thank you. Yeah, you bet. No problem. My pleasure. I thank so much for calling. That was Ron in Denver. Thank you, Ron, about the timeframe folks. As I do have those Russell 2000 equity future contracts on my screen out here, and if he was a real interday trader, I'd say, well, the 10-minute chart is giving a nice little buy signal at TD9 Count Bottom. You should see a little bit of a rally up to 2061. If you get above 2061, 2064 is in the cards, and then 2074, 40 is likely the area where the rally would stall, which is the sell zone on that 10-minute timeframe chart. So that's the only timeframe, by the way, of an interday standpoint that I've got some type of a signal. So let me get to a couple other requests that did come in. Alton wanted to take, like, a Devin energy. So let me go figure out where we put those charts. That wasn't that. He also wanted an oxy, but let's get Devin first. We take, like, a Devin. You're going to complete a TD9 Count Top today, and that suggests, Alton, that price should pull back to its oscillator and change line. That's at the 4329 level. The problem with that is if you get to 4329, you'll be below a barestructured daily profile, and that ought to take Devin energy down to 4270 or 4186. So TD9 Count Top completes on the daily timeframe today. You should see a pullback. On the other side, but if this pattern fails, to fail, you need to see a close above 4492, and then the next battle would be up at 4565. If we take a look at, move off of Devin energy, because we just have a few seconds here, and I go take a look at oxy for you. That wasn't it. Come on. Here are the oxy charts. Occidental Petroleum. What do we have here? You've got price running and resists at 6105. Alton, if you get a close above 6105, this is likely to rally to 6261. You get above 6261. You have a battle at 6362, and then finally, 6924. Folks, thanks so much for joining me today. Again, I won't be able to host the show tomorrow, but I'll be back with you all refreshed on Marvelous Magnificent Monday. Have a terrific Thursday, and happy birthday, Paula. We're thinking of you.


We're halfway through the Sportsmax zone on this Wednesday and we're going to switch now to Cricket. The Cricket West Indies on Wednesday confirmed a number of personal changes as the board revealed its decision not to renew the contracts of several selectors across the various West Indies teams including Roland Butcher, Travis Dowlin and Robert Haynes. CWI's director of Cricket Miles Baskum stressed the significance of the selection review process which led to the men's selector Butcher, women's team selector Dowlin and Haynes from the under-19 panel being released. Here's what Miles Baskum said, we are dedicated to refining our selection processes to better serve the needs of West Indies Cricket, the ongoing evaluation and restructuring efforts are integral steps toward achieving this goal. The review has been planned to coincide with the end of the contracts of some selectors to enable a seamless transition. Now the chief executive officer of CWI, Johnny Grave, in the meantime said the board's commitment to continuous evolution as an organization resulted in the redistribution of other roles within its ranks including that of commercial marketing and communications director Dominique Warren and media and public relations manager Philip Spooner. And Johnny Grave said, we have concluded a thorough appraisal process resulting in the realignment of responsibilities of some of our team members. As part of this process, while some contracts have reached a natural conclusion including those of Dominique Warren, commercial manager, commercial marketing and communicators director and Philip Spooner, media and public relations manager. Both individuals will continue supporting us in the extremely important year ahead in new roles working directly on the upcoming ICC Men's T20 World Cup and that will be in June. Now joining us via Zoom to assess the story's veteran cricket commentator, Joseph Reds-Barrear. Can we say Happy New Year to Reds and a man who has covered sport and West Indies Cricket for over 50 years, born in Guyana and based in St. Lucia. What is your take on this story which hit us late on Tuesday evening? First of all, let me wish you and Mariah and Ricardo, who's absent a very good 2024 year with good health and I hope Mariah has worked back a lot of goodies from Trinidad, a lot of bubbles, I'm sure she's got that to surprise you all maybe tomorrow for lunch. I don't ever bring back food, Reds. It's one, it's not allowed in the airport and two, I don't eat hot over food. Like I need fresh food. Okay, well make some for Lance and Ricardo. But Reds, you never asked me if I could make a roti? You were trying that young girl and you're back to the topic, Lance, your opening question. Yes. Your take on what has happened here because it from some angles appears sudden. Yes, sudden and surprise. Sudden and surprise. I'm going to ask you to go back to a statement you read from the CEO, Johnny Graves. But quickly I got in touch with Roland Butcher, the man probably most affected and he provide me some information which I shared with you that doesn't really back the view of the authorities that in any way form he did not provide the right kind of decisions in the decision making. And Roland points out that they won seven series in 2023 and one drawn. Now if you were not carrying on a man's contract you would think that it's the opposite way around that it was a very poor performance by the team and hence the selectors must take some responsibility. That certainly was not the case, Lance, and I think I did pass on the information to you and you would read it for yourself. Yes, there were some failures along the line though because the historic non-qualification for the 50 over World Cup would have had a lot of impact as well on the cricket community in the Caribbean. But that was not in 2023 was it? And they lost an ODI to India and want to have some balance, they lost a test to South Africa. But I would think that seven successes and one draw doesn't indicate that the selectors in general and Roland Butcher in particular did a very poor job. The work of qualifying tournament was early in the year, wasn't it? Early in the past year. And I just want to say that his contract had ended. Now when we read closely the press release that the CWI put out this morning, there is a suggestion that a lot of things are being reviewed and the expectation that some things are going to be handled differently. It may have been a skillful way on their part to communicate to the cricketing public that they're in the process of doing things differently. But I'm not sure how to take that Reds, is it that the panel will be reduced or expanded or because there is a clear indication from the press release that at least in the immediate future he will not be replaced? Well, I think they're now forced to come up with a new panel because there's only one person in place and that's the honourable Desmond Haynes. When they're going to do that, I do not know. But there is work to be done by the selectors in a short while. I'm told that they did pick the white ball squad for Australia. So that is out of the way. But I just want to go back before I further answer your question. We have concluded a thorough appraisal resulting in the realignment and responsibilities. Lance question, when was that done? Was Butcher ever spoken to? Did he have an interview? Did he have a chance to interact with a committee, that committee? Who was the committee? And as a former West Indies respected player asked me this afternoon, was the cricket committee involved? But yes, Lance, they have to look at maybe changing what the vice president then Dr. Shalo came up with with a two-member panel, whether they will now widen that. We just have to wait and see. They could, of course, provide the Dara Sammias coach with more authority as England did with Silverwood, but it didn't work in the manner that they were hoping. I had to change that. So we wait for a number of things to come out. For example, there is a director for the academy to be announced. And all the many people who have been moved on, sometimes you have to replace them. I mean, after the work up in June, according to what we hear, what we read, there will be no more Roland Holder. There will be no Philip Spooner. There will be no Dominic Ward, who are now, of course, applying their trade with the ICC for the 2020-2024 work up. So many, many questions and not a lot of answers. Yeah. Reds, you are on record, to be fair, as not a huge fan of the Kishore Shallow-Rikki Skerritt administration, which we have had for the past couple of cycles, based on some of the criticisms that you have leveled on this program among them. But Shallow appears to be very busy and there appears to be some plan to do things differently. Is this something good? Is this something that fans can feel encouraged by? I think when we are aware of the final picture, when we have the final information, we can then judge whether it's in the benefit of the future within this cricket. Right now, there's a lot of questions, there's a lot of missing pieces in the puzzle. And just to go back to what you said quite rightly, I have been critical previously of the Skerritt administration and that goes back to changing selectives and changing the coaches after we had beaten England. And I feel that there's not been enough information coming out on the board. Communication is very, very important. Who is doing what, when are you doing it? What's happening with the cricket committee? There are a lot of questions, there are more questions than answers that. And Desmond Haynes' contract is up for renewal, I think in the middle of this year. You are a man that follows these stories closely. From what you're gathering, do you think his contract will be renewed? I expect Desmond Haynes' contract to be renewed. I'm surprised that they did not extend Roland Butcher's contract to June, which would have been nice uniform to then make a decision for the selection committee. I'm told that Ann Jones' contract is being extended to June or it's always been in June. So they've got the decision to make there. But I expect, directly to your question, the Honorable Desmond Haynes to remain as the head of the selection committee, I expect a different selection committee. One maybe of a wider input from other ideas and other views. Well, we have to leave it here, but I want to suggest that based on the pressure that Des Haynes has been under for some recent selection decisions, a viewer may be questioning your backing of him having his contract renewed. And if that doesn't happen, are there any names that you can think of that could fill in this role? Well, I can give you names, but are they available? Are they willing to drink the chalice wine? I'm not sure. But when you look at other options in terms of a head selector, we don't have a cupboard full of ex-players who are willing or who can be asked. It's a very small number of people that right now you can think about. I would like to believe that maybe Jeffrey Dujan has still got a role to play. I would like to see Lillian Johnson be given some opportunity to be a head selector. I wouldn't be surprised if Lockhart Sebastian is brought back into a possible selection panel. One of the questions I missed to raise is that many people have been asking, what's the back room staff in Australia? We know that Coach Coley is there. We know that Jimmy Adams is in fact the batting coach. But who make up the rest of the back room staff? Those questions were in fact very much aware last night in the discussion in Barbados. A lot of people said they do not know, and I do not know. When I ask you a question, Lance, do you know the back room staff in Australia? No, I don't. But hopefully by Thursday's show we can get some information on that and furnish our viewers with that story. Yes, it would be good to try and ask a few more questions. All right, Reds, we're going to leave it. They're always a pleasure talking to you and all the best for the remainder of the evening and 2024. The best wishes with Maria's booking. Reds, you're trying to set me up on the show, you know. Thank you. I know your capabilities. I know your capability.  All right. Well, thank you, Reds, and all the best for 2024. I know we'll be chatting with you again very soon. Thank you. Take care. Break time.


The adult state house of assembly has elected a new speaker blessing Agbabakhu to oversee the eight assembly in the state. Blessing represent Owen West state constituency at the house of assembly who emerge after the inauguration of the house while Myriam Edeco representing Esson North East constituency emerges as a deputy speaker of the state assembly. Speaking shortly after being sworn in the speaker assured the people of the state that the eight assembly would not be a rubber stam house. Hello, hope you enjoyed the news. Please do subscribe to our YouTube channel and don't forget to hit the notification button so you get notified about fresh news updates.


This is Mises Weekends with your host Jeff Deist. Well, ladies and gentlemen, welcome back. Once again, it's Mises Weekends. We're joined by a friend of ours, someone I'm sure many of you already know, Daniel Lacalle. He is an economist, a PhD, someone who speaks all over the world at places like the US Fed and at Heritage and travels around to a lot of different countries in his role as a fund manager. But Daniel, I think what's most interesting for us is that you're not an academic economist at a university. You're not an academic economist at a place like the Fed, but you're sort of what I consider almost a new breed of economists who's out there, kind of like No Me Prins, kind of like Daniel D. Martinabuthan, that you are reporting almost from the front lines. You look at companies, you look at sectors, you apply technical economics training and libertarian and Austrian thought, and you bring all this together in a way that's very different from what I consider this dopey, credulous financial press. When you watched Jim Kramer talking about stocks, in other words, I think, talk about being an independent economist. Yes, I think it's, thank you for that, by the way, because I find it's great to be in such company according to you, but I think it's very important to keep an eye on reality. And one of the things that happens when you speak with scholars, with people that come from academia, is that they stick to, you know, to the dogmas. They stick to dogmas that have the Phillips card, the old-fashioned Excel spreadsheet models, and the reality is a lot more complex. And as we are seeing more and more each day, the economy is not just what the government is spending, what consumers are doing, how people are deciding to spend or to save. The economy is vibrant, it's changing all the time, and there's an overlay that academia tends to forget, which is the financial market, and hence the reason why people are so skeptical about economists and so skeptical about mainstream economists. Because while they exert a tremendous influence on financial markets, they absolutely and completely ignore the challenges and the impact of the decisions that they make in financial assets and asset prices. Well, they also are very good at predicting things, are they? They kind of blew the crash of 08, for example. Absolutely, because think about this. Academia, while giving a sort of magical wand type of mainstream academia, gives a sort of magical wand to monetary policy, to government spending a very aggressive level of direct influence on the real economy of monetary policy and the biggest economic agent, which tends to be the public sector. While they do that, they completely ignore economic cycles. Most economists tend to, by accepting the fact that governments and monetary policy can influence the way in which the economy moves, they ignore economic cycles. And because an economic cycle is an abnormality, usually based on the assumption that there is a problem of lack of demand that can be solved through government intervention. And if you think about this, most of the academia tends to think that all economic problems are demand problems and a such need to be sorted out through somebody, be it the central bank or the government or both, that incentivizes demand. But absolutely ignore oversupply, which is probably something that we, from the side of Austrian economics, understand a lot better, because that actually, the challenges of supply side economics and the excesses, are much more explained by the fact that economic cycles do happen, no? But it would seem that even today, a lot of fund managers, a lot of Wall Street folks, and certainly a lot of professional economists really don't know much at all about monetary policy. In other words, they kind of ignore that side of the equation. Because we have seen, I think this is the third generation of traders that has only seen demand side policies, has only seen expansionary policies. And as such, they don't see anything else. I was having a discussion very, very recently, actually 40 minutes ago on Indian television about the challenges on the Indian economy of the Federal Reserve raising rates. And the answer by mainstream economists is, well, the Federal Reserve should not raise rates. And you see, we have lived such a prolonged period in which every piece of negative economic news was actually good news for financial markets, because it meant that central banks were going to push further with established policies that everybody sort of feels right now in uncharted territory. Because the only thing that we have seen is I've lived 600 rate decreases, no? Imagine, so that is a big problem because it clouds your perception of value, it clouds your perception of what is risky and what is attractive. It clouds many investment decisions. And it's a big challenge right now.  You have no idea what that would even mean. Paul Volcker might as well be from the 1800s rather than the 1900s. In other words, we have entire generations of people in the world of economics and finance who have never seen interest rates in operation. Yeah, and more worryingly, there is a very large proportion of people who think that interest rates themselves are a negative instead of an essential factor of the price of money and why money has something that is scarce and needs to have a price as a reflection of risk. And it's so interesting because at the same time, the same people that tend to say that, look, interest rates, I have never seen interest rates go up and I expect that interest rates will never go up, those same people have a very aggressive and possibly negative view about the real economy. And it's interesting because while central bank policy has led so many people to be extremely complacent about financial markets and about risky assets, at the same time, there is something that doesn't click. So you do see interest rates at zero, but you don't borrow more. You do see tremendous amounts of money supply and banks willing to lend you almost for anything. They don't even ask you, you know? And people are actually saving more. So something inside is actually behaving much more intelligently than what they initially perceived by the current environment. But it is extremely dangerous because an entire generation does not know what is going on. But also, shouldn't financial markets serve a noble purpose? In other words, allocating capital to its best and highest uses, which makes us all wealthier and healthier and happier and it raises people out of poverty. But instead, I think even people who don't understand technically, they sense that it's rigged. They do sense it. They do sense it. And it's reflected in something that I find fascinating when I speak with clients, no? Is that on one side, you see equity markets shoot through the roof. And at the same time, many of my clients, they just want to be involved in fixed income, despite negative real rates. So they do sense that something is not right. But I agree. I mean, financial markets do serve a better purpose. And it's a noble purpose because it's allowing companies to finance themselves and the ones that do better to finance themselves at a better rate and to have more access to liquidity if they're doing the right thing. It is a way of giving a bonus or a premium to companies that allocate capital adequately and, therefore, create more value and generate better business and better goods and services for the community. And all of that, it's distorted by the fact that suddenly central banks are worried about price, are worried about the fact that they don't worry about the fact that those effects are created by financial markets. The financial markets are serving their purpose, but they're worried about the fact that credit growth, they just worry about credit growth. They don't worry about what type of credit. They don't worry if a lot of that money is going to very high risk, high yield, no real return type of companies, bubble assets, et cetera. They just look at credit growth as sort of a goal in itself, no matter what type of growth it is. Now, I remember speaking at the European Central Bank and saying, isn't the European Central Bank concerned about the fact that 80% of capital allocation in the European Union is going to recycling of capital? And they just didn't even know that. They thought, what is the problem? Well, it means that you're basically just churning assets between the same parts of the economy, but you're not creating more and better goods and services and more productivity. Central banks are not talking about productivity almost at all. They actually think that low productivity growth is an abnormality that will be corrected through time, but they're not understanding that they are part of the problem. And mainstream economies, for example, almost never talk and in financial markets about money velocity, which I find fascinating because if you're actually seeing such an abnormal amount of money supply in the economy, money velocity should be an absolutely key factor to understand whether your inflation expectations and your productivity growth estimates are going to happen or are they going to be wrong? Well, give us the central premise of your most recent book. It's called Escape from the Central Bank Trap. What is the trap that central banks have created for themselves by creating so much base money and by keeping interest rates so low?  Central banks believe that bubbles or that excessive valuation in financial markets are sort of a benign secondary effect or even a sort of, I don't know, almost something that happens, but you don't have to worry too much about because you care more about inflation, growth, whatever. And that is the trap. The trap is that on one side, you ignore the asset valuations and the bubbles that you're creating. And once they happen, you cannot normalize the policy because the impact of that financial asset bubble would be so huge that it would have ripple effects on the real economy that you're thinking about. So almost as a collateral damage is sort of, well, yeah, valuations are high, but that is supply and demand. No, I've heard this. I've had the opportunity of working or speaking with at least three presidents or chairmen of central banks. And yeah, valuations are high, but who cares? It'll be corrected through time. And they don't understand the ripple effects that they have in the economy funnily enough until they leave the central banks. Ben Bernanke is now talking about the excessive valuations and a green span as well, et cetera. So that is the trap. The book Escape from the Central Bank trap is based on the idea that I've read numerous books, fantastic books about the absolutely atrocious role of central banks and why they should disappear. I've read numerous books about how great central banks are, the best thing after sliced bread, and that they should actually introduce negative absolute rates and push monetary policy even further. But I wanted to write a book that said, look, central banks are not going to disappear. And there are things that they can do to avoid creating more and more bubbles that end up generating lower and lower growth and more and more indebtedness. And the book is basically about the challenges and solutions that are feasible understanding that central banks are not going to disappear. I understand the argument of why they should, they're not. So my point is to give credible and feasible solutions in which central bankers pay attention to the importance of financial asset valuations a lot more than what they actually do. Well, here's an example of one trap. If interest rates were just in the historical average of 5% to 10%, the US government would be in a position where the single biggest budget item for the US Congress every year would be service on that debt. It would be a trillion dollars a year. I mean, how can they ever raise rates? Congress would have a mutiny. Well, Congress would have a mutiny, absolutely. Obviously, low rates. Well, we're for that, by the way. We're for a mutiny by Congress or anybody else. Low rates are an incentive to borrow more. Yeah. They present lowering rates as an opportunity to reduce imbalances, but they're not. They're an opportunity to binge. And obviously the most indebted and the most sectors that have the most access to debt are the ones that are going to take that opportunity, government being the first. The federal government definitely has a problem with the budget. The United States has lived too long from borrowing and with the false idea that it's actually embedded in academia, you can read very, very thoughtful papers about it, saying that the US government actually needs to borrow more because if not, it doesn't provide liquidity to the rest of the world and that the US debt is actually an asset, a quality asset that other people value.  It is a liability and it's a growing liability and it's the reason why the United States, like so many other countries, gets out of crisis with weaker and weaker growth rates and the reason why it goes from crisis to crisis much more rapidly as well. Crisis have always existed, but we have seen they're more and more abundant. They're not as aggressive as they used to be before there was a globalized the financial market, but it is true that we have more number of crisis and debt stands at the forefront of that problem. Well, let me ask you something that Ron Paul asked, Ben Bernanke, do you look at gold? Do you care about gold, this gold factor into your thinking as an analyst? It does, I do, I do. I do pay a lot of attention to gold. I don't pay attention to gold from the perspective that some people do almost as the true measure of money, but to me, gold is an important factor. It's an important factor because the price of gold reflects numerous things starting with and not being only, for example, what are the real inflation expectations of the economy? The gold is an inflation hedge. I do look at the price of gold all the time, but one thing that I think that people who pay too much attention to gold fail or make mistakes by doing so is, for example, considering that a currency is stronger if the central bank of a country has more gold. The key example is the Russian ruble. Russian ruble is a very weak currency, but the central bank follows almost Austrian and actually very wise policies for its own economy. But this is clear, for example, dichotomy. You have countries in which the amount of gold reserves is high, Russia or Turkey, for example, and their currencies are very weak, their stock markets can be extremely weak and their imbalances are actually important. So I do pay a lot of attention to it, but not as sort of like the pillar that around which everything evolves, more like something that sort of, it's like an anchor. It brings you back to reality when things get crazy. Well, one last question for you, Daniel. You mentioned earlier, dogmatism. That's a charge that's oftentimes thrown at really hardcore Austrians, really true believers, but the irony here is we're supposed to be the causal realist school of economics. How can Austrians do better? How can, I mean, obviously the short answer is be less dogmatic, but how could Austrians do better? And how can we get our views out there and let people know that the Austrian perspective had a lot to say about the 08 crash and might be valuable in the future? My biggest criticism as a follower of the Austrian school is that we don't provide solutions. It's usually the Austrian school is tremendous at pointing at the problem and saying, look, so we're almost looking at that as the guys that are going to turn on the lights and stop the music. So get these people out of here. I don't wanna talk about these people. They tell me that everything is wrong. I wanna know more, no? And I think that that's where we need to step up because the Austrian school of economics was always about solutions. If we look at the teachings of Mises, we took, it was always about not just criticizing what was going wrong, but also about an entire model of economic policy that was better for savers, for the middle class. I think that that's what we're missing. Precisely in an environment in which we are seeing that maybe indirectly, maybe people don't know why, but they do get that something is wrong and they react against the status quo, the status quo by saying, we don't believe in central banks, we don't believe in governments. Yet, instead of going to something that is actually a solution to all of that, which are the teachings of the Austrian school of economics, what they do is actually go to socialism because socialism offers Xanadu, offers party, offers the music to continue to play despite the fact that there's no turntable. And so the, I think that that's where we need to step up. I think that what we need to do is to see more articles, more comments in what we say is, look, these are the solutions. If we think about this, the reason why the middle class is angry, the reason why people perceive that they are not better off than how they were before crisis, et cetera, we need, and they sort of understand that governments and politicians and they don't understand very much central banks, but they do understand that the purchasing power of their salary is lower, is that we offer solutions that make economies work better, that don't have to go constantly from boom to bust cycles and that don't elevate the government to God will at the same time protecting savers and the middle class. That's what we need to do in my opinion. Well, Daniel Akai, thanks for your time. Good evening to you in London. Ladies and gentlemen, I'm glad to be thinking about and listening to some of these independent voices. You can find Daniel Lakai, L-A-C-A-L-L-E on Twitter. You can find his book, Escape from the Central Bank Tramp, at Mises.org. You can find it at Amazon. And I really suggest you follow us Twitter Freed because he's a very active guy and someone you ought to be following. Daniel, thank you so much. Ladies and gentlemen, have a great weekend. Subscribe to Mises Weekends via iTunes U, Stitcher and SoundCloud or listen on Mises.org and YouTube.


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