Live from Boston, Massachusetts, it's theCUBE. Covering AWS Reinforce 2019. Brought to you by Amazon Web Services and its ecosystem partners. Hey, welcome back everyone. It's theCUBE's live coverage here in Boston, Massachusetts for AWS Reinforce Amazon Web Services, inaugural event around cloud security. I'm John Furrier, Dave Vellante. Two days of coverage, we're winding down day two. We're excited to have you here in theCUBE, special guest, one of the big announcements. Well, I think it's been a nerdy announcement is the Automated Reasoning Byron Cook, director of the Automated Reasoning Group within AWS. Again, this is part of the team that's going to help figure out security, use automation to augment humans. Great to have you on. Big part of the show here. Welcome to the team. Yeah, thanks very much for having me. All right, so explain the Automated Reasoning Group. Verner Vogel had a great blog post on all things distributed, applies formal verification techniques in an innovative way to cloud security and compliance for our customers, for our own AWS developers. What does that mean? What does it mean by that?  Yeah, let me try, I'll give you one explanation and then if I puzzle you, I'll try to explain it in a different way. So, do you know the Pythagorean Theorem? Yep, oh sure. Yeah, so the Pythagorean Theorem is about all triangles that was proved in approximately 300 BC. The proof is a finite description in logic as to why it's true and it holds for all possible triangles. So, we're basically using the same approaches to prove properties of policies, of networks, of programs, so for example, crypto, virtualization, the storage, et cetera. So, we write software, this finds proofs in mathematics and the proofs are the same as what Euclid found for Pythagorean Theorem. So, to apply into solve problems that become these mundane tasks of checking config files, making sure things are, it's a little bit more than that, so I'll give you an example. So, S2N, which is the TLS implementation used, for example, in S3, but the large majority of AWS, so that has approximately 12,000 state-holding elements so that if you include the stack on the heap usage, so the number of possible states it could reach is two to the 12,000 and if you wanted to show that the TLS handshake implementation is correct or the HMAC implementation is correct or the deterministic random bit generator implementation is correct, which is what we do, using conventional methods, like trying to run tests on it, so you would need, if you have like a million Haswell microprocessors, and you would need many more lifetimes than the sun is going to emit light at 3.4 billion dollars a year to exhaustively test that system. So, what we do is we, rather than just running a bunch of inputs on the code, we represent that as a mathematical system and then we use proof techniques, automatically search for a proof and with our tools, we, in about 10 minutes, are able to prove all of those properties of S2N. So then we, yeah, in 10 minutes. And then we apply that to pieces of S3, pieces of EC2 virtualization infrastructure and then what we've done is we've realized that customers had a lot of questions about their networks and their policies. So, for example, they have a complicated network worldwide, different availability zones, different regions, and they want to ask, hey, does there exist a way for this machine to connect to this other machine? Or, you know, does all SSH traffic coming in that eventually gets to my web server go through a bastion host, which is a best practice? And then we can answer that question, again, using logic. So we take the representation, the semantics of EC2 networking, the policy, the network from the customer, and then the question we're asking, express in logic, and we throw a big, call a theorem prover, get the answer back, and then same for policies. So you're analyzing policies. Policies, networks, programs. Networks, connections. Yeah. Right? Yeah. And the tooling is Zalcova and... So, yeah, so basically we come with a tech, we come with an approach and then we have many tools that implement the approach on different problems. That's how you apply it. So Zalcova, all underneath, it's all uses of a kind of tool called SMT and SAT. So there's a SAT solver proves theorems about formulae and propositional logic, and SMT is SAT modular theories. Those tools can prove properties of problems expressed in first order logic. And so what we do is we take the, for example, if you have a question about your policies, answering semantic level questions about policies is actually a PSPACE problem, so that's harder than MP complete. We express the question in logic and then call the solvering and they get their answer back and marshal it back, and that's what Zalcova does. So that's calling a tool called CVC4, which is an open source prover, and we, when Zalcova, we take the policy, the question encoded to logic, call the solver and marshal the answer back. What's the root of this? I mean, presumably there's some academic research that was done, you guys are applying it for your specific use case, but can you share with us the origination of this? So the first MP complete problem was discovered by a cook and not me, another cook in the early 70s. And so he proved that the propositional satisfiability problem is MP complete. And meanwhile, there's been a lot of research from the 60s, so Davis and Putnam, for example, I think a paper from mid-60s where they were trying to answer the question of can we efficiently solve this MP complete problem, propositional satisfiability? And that research has continued. There have been a bunch of breakthroughs, and so now we're really starting to see very, from there was a big breakthrough in 2001, and then some further breakthroughs in the 2005, 2008 range. So what we're seeing is that the solvers are getting better and better. So there's an international competition of, let's say, usually about 30 solvers, and there's a study recently where they took all of the winners from this competition each year, 2002 to 2011, and compared them on the same benchmarks and hardware, and the 2002 solver was able to solve a quarter of the benchmarks, and the 2011 solved practically all of them, and then the 2019 solvers are even better. And so nowadays they can take problems and logic that have many tens of millions of variables and solve them very efficiently. So we're really using the power of those underlying solvers and marshaling the questions to those solvers. You're codifying, thinking math, and that's the math power is, you gave a talk in one of the sessions around provable security, what's kind of the title, actually proves provable. What does that entail? Can you just explain that concept and the talk thesis? So, mathematical logic is 2,000 years old, right? So it has refined, so Boole, for example, made logic less of a philosophical thing and more of a mathematical thing. And then automated reasoning was sort of developed in the 60s where you take algorithms and apply algorithms to find proofs in mathematical logic, and then provable security is the application of automated reasoning to questions in security and compliance. So you want to prove absence of memory corruption errors in C code, you want to prove termination of event handling routines that are supposed to handle security events. All of those questions are properties of your program and you can use these tools to automatically or find proofs and then check the proofs that have been found manually and that's where provable security fits in. What was the makeup on the attendee list where people grokking this, where people excited?  Because you have a cross-section of great security people here and they're deep dive conversations. It's not like reinvent this show. This is really deep security. What was some of the feedback and makeup of the attendees of these talks? So I'm going to give you two answers because I actually gave two talks and the answers are a little bit different because it's subject to the talk. So there was one on provable security which was basically the foundation of logic and how we, how Thierry St. Selkova and our program, because we also proved correctness of crypto and so on and so forth, those tools. And so that was largely a folks who had heard about it and we're wanting to know more and we're wanting to know how we're using it and trying to learn. There was a second talk which was about the application of it to compliance. So that was with Tom McAndrew who's the CEO of Coalfire, one of the third party auditors that AWS uses and a lot of customers use and also Chad Wolf, who's Vice President of Security, focused on compliance. And so the three of us spoke about how we're using it internally within AWS to automate certification, to complete certification. And so that crowd was a really interesting mixture of people interested in automated reasoning and people interested in compliance which are two communities you wouldn't think normally hang together, but that it's sort of like chocolate and peanut butter. It turns out to be a really great application. And they need to work together too because this is where all the action is. They don't get stuck in the compliance and auditing, but full engineering teams are merging with kind of old school compliance nerds. So there's a really interesting sort of dynamic to proof that has the perfect use case in compliance. So the problem of proving termination of programs is undecidable. Proving problems and propositional logic is NP complete. It all sounds very difficult and you use heuristics to solve those problems. But the thing is that once you've found a proof, replaying the proof is linear in size of the proof. And so actually you can do it extremely efficiently. And that has application and compliance. So one could imagine that you have, for example, PCI, HIPAA, FedRAMP, you have certain controls that you want to prove that the property, like for example, within AWS, we have a control that all data at rest must be encrypted. So we are using program verification tools to show that of the code base. But now once we've run that tool, that constructs a proof, like Euclid found in the Pythagorean theorem, that you can package up in a file, hand to an auditor and then a very simple, easy to understand third-party open source tool can replay that proof. And so that becomes audit evidence. It's a scale. A total example of scale. Yeah, so I would say the engineering problem you're solving is security at scale. The business problem you're solving is trust. Customers are struggling just implementing better security. There just aren't enough security professionals to hire. So the old, as the talk explains, they're all on YouTube, so people watching this show can go check it out. But by the way, I should make a plug for, if you Google AWS Provable Security, there's a webpage on AWS that has papers and videos and lots of information, so you might want to check that out. I can't remember what I was answering now, so I lost track. It's got links to the academic channels as well, right? Oh yes, so that was the point that Tom McAndrew is pointing out, is in the old days you would do an audit, you would come in, there'd be a couple Linux box, there'd be a Windows box, you'd check a few things, it'd be a little network, great. But now you have machines across the world, extremely complex networks, interaction between policies, networks, crypto, et cetera. And so there's no way a human or even a team of humans could come in and have any reasonable chance of actually deeply understanding the system. So they just sort of check some stuff and then they call it success and these tools really allow you to actually understand the entire system. Well Byron, you guys are doing some cutting edge work, folks watching and want to know how math translates into the real world with all you high school kids out there, parents, this is an example of the stuff you learn in school actually can be played. So great work, I think this is cutting edge, I think math and the confidence of math intersects with groups, the compliance example, audit example, shows that worlds are going to come together with math. I think this is a big mega trend, it's going to not eliminate the human element, it's going to augment that, so great stuff. Final question, just randomly while you're here since you're a math guru, we're always interested, we're always covering our favorite topic, a blockchain. We believe that a security conference is going to soon have a blockchain component because of the immutability of it, there's a lot of math behind it. So as that starts to mature, certainly Facebook entering in with their own currency, a whole nother conversation, which we don't want to have here, is bringing a lot of attention. So we see the intersection of security being a supply chain problem in the future, your thoughts on that just generally. So the problem of proving programs is undecidable and that means that you can't build a general solution. What you're going to have to do is look for niche areas like device drivers, networks, policies, API usage on crypto, et cetera, and then make the tools work for that area and you will have to be comfortable with the idea that occasionally the tools aren't going to be able to find an answer. And so the Amazon culture of being customer obsessed and working as closely as possible with the customer has been really helpful to my community of logic formal methods practitioners because they were really forced to work with the customer and understand the problem. So what I've been doing is listening to the customer and finding out what the problems, what the concerns they are and then focusing my attention on that. And I haven't yet heard of customers asking me for mathematical proof on cryptocurrency, blockchain sorts of stuff, but I await further instructions. You're intrigued, yeah, I'm not sure. So I always like mathematics. But where we have been hearing customers ask for help is, for example, we're working on free RTOS, so IoT applications, understanding the networks that are connecting up IoT to the cloud, understanding the correctness of machine learning. So I've done some machine learning. I've constructed a model. How do I know what it does and is it compliant? Does it respect HIPAA, FedRAMP, PCI, et cetera? And some other issues like that. There's a lot of talk in the industry about quantum computing and creating nightmares for guys like you. How much thought have you given that? Do you have any things you can share with us? Yeah, so there's work in the AWS crypto team preparing for the post quantum world. So imagine Adversary has quantum computer and so there are proposals. AWS has a number of proposals and those proposals have been implemented, so they're standards. And our team has been doing proof on the correctness of those. So actually in one of my talks, I think the talk not with Chad and Tom, I show a demo of our work to prove the correctness of some post quantum code. Cool, Byron, thank you for coming on and sharing the insight. Congratulations on the automated reason. Good to see you put in the practice and appreciate the commentary. Thank you very much. Cube here for the first inaugural cloud security event reinforced AWS is putting on this Cube coverage. I'm John Furrier with Dave Vellante. Thanks for watching.


My name is Blake Waterworth. I'm a pain management physician and assistant professor of anesthesiology at the University of Maryland in the department of anesthesiology. I went to medical school at Temple University in Philadelphia. I then did my anesthesiology training here at University of Maryland, followed by a pain management physician fellowship at University of Maryland as well. Personally I was interested in pain management back in medical school. I remember doing a rotation, walking up and down the wards, doing rounds, meeting a lot of different patients with many different diseases, both common, both uncommon. And one big pervasive issue was pain on top of the disease and dealing with that. And I thought how interesting it would be to be able to treat and heal people with something that's really at the forefront of their minds on top of everything else that they had to deal with. And the more I learned about the specialty of pain management, the more I became interested learning about all the different techniques we can use, not only medications, but kind of really looking at the whole body and mind and bringing that together and really incorporating multiple different specialties together to really help people and make a difference and impact their lives. So my typical day involves seeing patients in our outpatient facility. Our main campus is at University of Maryland Orthopedic and Rehabilitation Institute. We're also expanding to a few different areas within the university. The other part of my time is performing different various procedures, some injection techniques, as well as some of the newer nerve stimulation and spinal cord stimulation procedures that also are new and forthcoming in the world of pain management. The way I tend to look at patients who are in pain, I look at the entire patient, not just what medications they're on, you know, not just the disease process, but really have to take into account the whole body and mind looking at a comprehensive strategy to manage pain. There's a lot of influence in how you deal with pain and how you cope with pain, not just the initial injury or initial insult or surgery that may have caused pain or disease process that might be producing pain. So we really involve multiple specialty comprehensive approach to pain management, which can include medications and strengthening and stretching and things with physical therapy and our colleagues in orthopedics and some behavioral health and integrative medicine techniques that are also emerging in the world of pain management. So my ultimate goal in a comprehensive pain management strategy is really trying to work with the patient and getting them back to being as functional as possible. That might be getting back to work, it might be playing with their grandkids, whatever it is they might want to do is where we put our minds to. A lot of that incorporates pain relief as much as possible, more activity, more exercise, but ultimately reducing pain, increasing function is what my goal would be.


The following is a presentation of TFNN. The Trader's Edge with Steve Rhodes. Toll free at 1-877-927-6648 or internationally at<PHONE_NUMBER>. The Trader's Edge. Now, Steve Rhodes. Good morning folks. This is Steve Rhodes. This is the March 20th edition of today's Trader's Edge show. Haven't rehearsed this one. Anyways, I cannot do the opening that I normally do. And the reason is that I'm sincere about everything that I do say and I do believe that in life everything is happening for us, not to us. But as you can imagine, my struggle has always been death. And as you know or hopefully, you know or hopefully, but if you don't know by now, we lost David White last week. And he's had an amazing impact on each of us. And so the only way that I've been able to reconcile death in believing that everything in life happens for us is realizing that I don't understand much. Certainly when it comes to the global world, the universe, we call it the universe. And so my only way to be able to justify what life is happening for us is to realize there is this bigger power. There is this bigger universe out there. And each of us here know just simply how tremendously talented David White was. And so my belief has got to be that he was called to a much higher calling out there, especially after hearing the details that Tommy shared with us this morning at the Open. And thanks so much for doing that, Tommy. And leading us off. So I do believe that everything in life happens for us. And that's why I met Dave White. I met Dave White in 2006. I read some. And first of all, for all of you that have either sent emails to us at TFNN or all the postings inside the Tiger's Den. Thank you for doing that. I wish Dave was here to read those things. He would be, he would be floored, I think. He's a pretty humble person. And so thank you for sharing all those thoughts and ideas. I saw somebody had purchased David's software in 2002, maybe one of the first individuals. And I was about four years behind that and purchased that software package in 2006. Dave was just wonderful about helping me get that installed, teaching me, helping me to understand. I was a new knock. Hey, I was totally green at that stage of the game. I couldn't look at a chart and tell you what in the heck it meant at all. But Dave helped me through that. I understand. I understood the power law vector indicator out there. And the great tools that Dave had developed. And then that, you know, let's say customer-client relationship blocks them into a friendship, a peer-to-peer friendship in 2009, 2010 timeframe when I joined forces with Tom. Actually, it's probably about a couple years after, maybe about 2011 really when, I think 2010 to 2011 when the relationship really started to get solid when I started hosting the show here at TFNN. And in the last two and a half years, Dave and I, we've spoken every weekend. Really, we've spoken every day for the most part, sometimes just by emails. But on the weekends, we were both free. Sometimes we would spend hours on the phone. Dave and I were collaborating. We were just about to complete. He was helping me build my entire system. And build this extraordinary scanner. And once that was built, then we were going to incorporate some of his tools into that. And, you know, the message on Monday and Wednesday from Dave was that we were basically done. There was one last thing, not done with the whole package, but done with the next really major element of that. So, yeah, it's just, he's touched my life. He's touched your life, I'm sure. I know he has. And I'm going to miss him greatly. So, let's just try to move on with the show out here. You don't need a blubbering, blabbering person. So, let's try to get the markets out here. So we've got all the US indices that are trading to the upside. All the sectors, with the exception of the technology sector, inside the S&P 500 are trading higher. If a goal which has given up its overnight gains, it's now only up about 50 cents and silver's up four pennies out there. If we take a look at what's going on inside the markets, let's move over and take a look at, well, let's do this here. Stand this screen. What we know that we do have with regard to the ESMINI, the NQ, the Dow, and now the Russell 2000 is with regard to the ESMINI, the NQ and the Dow, we have bottoming patterns. We have Gartley buy patterns, in the case, really all three of these. These were the buy, the D points, the completion of the A to B equal seeding patterns. Inside the Russell 2000, it is now completing an A to B equal seeding to the downside, the 1 to 1.618. That may or may not be the pattern that identifies the bottom. Today is going to be the bar following bar number nine. So what we know that we have now is we will have bottom patterns in each of the four equity future contracts. Now, the cool thing about that is that if the lows get taken out, we know what the message is to us. In the meantime, the NQ is the one that's had the bottom form the earliest. It is trading with inside its February 2nd swing point, and a continued close above 12, 632 will signal at least a test of the high, maybe even taking out the high, and that high is going to keep an eye on us 13068. That is a likely outcome, I would say, if we get the ESMINI to get above the top of its daily profile. Not just get above it, but close above it. 4,007. In the case of the Dow, the Dow traded up into its resistance zone. So the Dow has a bare structured profile. That bare structured profile has resisted between 32586 and 32797. So really the Dow, in order to suggest that it's changing its trend for whatever period of time that might be, needs to close above 32797. And in the case of the Russell 2000, this is a new profile that is attempting to form. The support level of the bottom is 1727. Man, it's tough. And the top, 1825. So you do have all four equity future contracts that are certainly attempting to form a borough form in the bottom. There's no question about that. Let's go take a look at those white background charts. So we see the ESMINI. We can see that price is trading right up into resistance. That red oscillator on change line. Which is at 3972. So if price can close above that, it still needs to close above 4,007 to suggest to you and I that this market wants to move higher. We've already really covered the NQ. There's nothing additional out here that we can take a look at. The Dow equity future contract has a buy the D point pattern and a bullish reversal candle today. And at the moment, it's a piercing candle bullish. I'm sorry to say, yeah, it's a... No, it's not anything just yet. But if we do get a bullish reversal candle today, you would get a confirmed. Roads make the indicator bottom pattern out there. And the same really with regard to the Russell. But look, the TD nine count bottom is really all that you need out there. So we've got bottoms in all four of the daily equity future contracts. The issues really for the market. You've got that spot follow till next, which is still well above its 50 day exponential moving average. The 50 day is at 2162. Spot right now, 2460. Steve Rhodes with TFNN will be right back. 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, including the dollar index, 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. 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. The opening call newsletter is written by Basil Chapman, creator of the trading methodology known as the Chapman Wave. The Chapman Wave up-down sequence gives you an edge in identifying price turns, finding the peaks and valleys in stock prices.  First time subscribers also get a 30 day money back guarantee. If you're not satisfied, let us know and you'll get a full refund within 30 days of signing up. TFNN.com Educating Investors. Steve Rhodes started his trading career as a student almost 20 years ago and the student has now become the master. Steve won the prestigious Timer of the Year award in 2018 and barely missed that mark again in 2019, finishing at number two for the year, an amazing accomplishment. Steve Rhodes is committed to sharing his techniques and knowledge with anyone who wants to learn and he shares his vast amount of trading knowledge every day in his Mastering Probability newsletter. 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. At 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. Maybe Dave is hanging out with Bud and Ed today and if they are, they're looking down on us and they'd appreciate this chart, at least Bud most certainly would. This chart here is of the Dow, the cash indices out here and the green horizontal lines are referred to as the horizontal trading ranges. Now, Bud taught something called primary trading ranges. He did his visually, I do mine electronically out there and when I say I do mine electronically, what this tool is doing is looking for the largest number of co-located opens and closes. When I say co-located, it doesn't matter whether it's an open or a closed or they're next to each other out there and you look for the largest consolidation area. On this chart here, it turns out that on the daily time, for weekly time frame, I'm on the weekly chart here, that at 10,558, there's been 186 occurrences where price on a weekly basis stopped really near that level. That sets up the first primary trading range. The second one was set up here at what appears right now. Well, it was done at 79, 36, 54. There were 65 of those so once we have that established then each of the incremental horizontal lines that you look at are increased by that value difference. Now take us to where we're at today. Really a couple of different things that we're looking at. First, we're looking at a rising price channel, those in the blue diagonal going from lower left to upper right. We can see there was a descending price channel, that price that was contained within. It finally broke out of that when it ran into resistance was at its horizontal trading range. That was up at the 34, 152 level. We can see that clearly. Now what price is done, it's pulled back. Oftentimes, when you pull out of a descending price channel, you come back and test it. If a test rejected, it's a bullish sign. Well, that really took place back in the December timeframe. Tested it, rejected it, tried to move higher, ran into resistance at that 34, 152 level. Now folks, you don't use this to the penny. You don't use this right to the dollar. Use this as a range. These are trading ranges out there. You can see how price has been contained within the trading range that we're in now. With 31, 530 being support and 34, 152 being resistant. Now the interesting thing about the move last week, the week before, was price was just pulling back and retesting that descending price channel. So that would then say, if you can't bust them to the downside, you try to bust them to the upside out there. Let's move on from this and let's go take a look at some of the requests that have come in. And I'll take all the requests that I can. I like to do that each and every day. And certainly today is no different, but how we'll take each and every request that we can get. So let's go ahead and change my screens. We'll go over to the white background screens here momentarily. And the first request was for, was Dan, who wanted to take a look at the yen. So let me get to the yen charts out there. And I believe Dan was asking if we see any kind of a bottom signal. So let's go see what the charts are communicating to us, Dan. Here on the upper left-hand side, you've got the monthly timeframe chart. Prices below a green oscillator and change line just simply says that price might be pulling back. Now it hasn't taken out last month's lows, but it did take out last month's high. So I'm not overly caught up in here that this is telling us for sure that price wants to move lower. If I take a look at the weekly timeframe chart last week, as an example, it also found resistance at its green oscillator and change line. Now this has taken out last week's low and it's not trading below it right now. If you look at the daily timeframe chart, this is, I think, what you were really asking about, Dan, just simply going to expand out the daily chart. I think this is what you were looking for. If we take a look at... So if we take a look at what price has done so far, the question basically was, are we seeing any kind of support? And the support here, Dan, is right at the bottom of its TD9 count breakout level. And that's at 131.279 if we want to really get granular out there. Now, what we don't have is really any kind of a bottoming signal. Today is bar number seven. Let's draw in the potential A to B equal CD pattern as well out here. So the A point... Is that the low? Yeah, that's perfect. So I've drawn to the A to B. We're going to simply cut and paste and assemble here. That's what the beauty of being an actual CPA is. You can cut, paste, and assemble. So now we take a look at the A to B equal CD pattern. We're a little bit... So that's going to be right around 129.40... 129.50, let's call it. So we're not close enough to confirm a completed A to B equal CD that's just waiting for a bearish, a bullish reversal candle. But perhaps we get a TD9 count bottom. That could take place between tomorrow and Thursday out there. So do I see support? If that was the answer, the absolute answer is yes. 131.27 out there. If that level fails, whether to suggest moving back to the lows here from back in November... January 16th. However, I'd harken to say if we get a TD9 count bottom, that most likely would be the low of the pattern out there. If I take a look at any of the other timeframe charts and mid-day charts we can see here. 61.22.45 hour. There are roads mid-diminicator bottom patterns that have been confirmed here. They're suggesting that the again, it's next level of resistance. It's where it's at right now. If you look at that five-hour chart, sitting right on that oscillator and change line, Dan. I think I'll do this here. Which is currently priced at 131.76. Let's call it 131.76. So price can move above that. It would suggest that the yen, I would say close above that, would then further rally with 132.38 to 132.72 being its price targets. So I hope that helps you out, Dan, with regard to the yen. The next question coming in is from SNP inside the Tigers, Dan. In SNP... Let me close out these charts here. It's taking up some resources. All right, so let's get back to... Which chart here? Might be this one? Yeah. So what SNP wants us to take a look at is Nugget. And I shared with him that I was going to really rip apart the GDX charts, but we would go ahead and take a look at Nugget. The reason is because the GDX, which is just a one-to-one, is going to provide you and I with a better source of information. And right now, what we can see here in the GDX, we'll see A to B equals CD to the upside. So let's go ahead and draw that pattern in. The A point down here from the trading day of March 9th makes a nice run up to a high that takes place on March 15th. And it pulls back for just one day. That pullback is enough to set up the C point of an A to B equals CD to the upside. So let's go ahead and put this in there too, just to give you an initial price projection. So the price projection of that would get us up into about the 3170-ish type area. Now, that pattern is in play. What the GDX is doing, though, much like Dan was asking, do we see any kind of support in the yen? And okay, good. So with regard to the yen, which was finding supported a TD9 count breakout area, what the yen is or what the GDX is doing is finding resistance at the TD9 count breakdown area. So you're up into a resistance level. You'd love to see price close above that. Now, the B point, which had volume, let's just see, I didn't have it checked out the volume. I didn't touch my computer. I just could not look at a screen. Anyways, the volume of 34 million shares was taken out with 63 million shares. So you have a confirmed A to B we'll see it at the upside. And I would say that the target's being around 3170 to 33 bucks. Now, if price were to close below the C point, that's a whole different story. But that's not what we have. What we have is price dealing with resistance 3091. We take a look at a weekly timeframe chart out here. The weekly timeframe chart shows a close above the top of its weekly profile. We're still above that at 3045. Price wants to run into the swing point from January 27th anywhere between 3171 and 3334. On the monthly timeframe chart, price is trading above the top of its profile. It's a red oscillator and chains on, so it's not as strong as a green oscillator and chains on. But nonetheless, it's still above resistance and that suggests that it too wants to move higher. So with regard to the GDX, let's take a look at the 30 minute timeframe chart before we go out here for break. And what this shows is a is a rogement to indicator top. The key levels of support on a pullback. 3066, the bottom of its profile, and then finally 3010. If we close below 3010, that says we need to come back and take a look at certainly what's going on in gold and silver, as well as the GDX. If you want to take advantage of this sector, now is the time to subscribe to my Gold Report. The Gold Report is a comprehensive look at the metal sector as well as the markets that move gold, which is the currency and bond markets. If you subscribe and get a 30 day money back guarantee, so you have nothing to lose. Every Monday morning I publish the Gold Report with coverage of gold, silver, bonds, the XAU, HUI, GDX, as well as more than 30 different mining equities. To see for yourself the types of profitable trades that are recommended within the Gold Report, sign up now by visiting TFNN.com. Don't miss out on the next great gold trade. Sign up today. TFNN has just launched their new trading room, the Tiger's Den, hosted at Discord. TFNN has been educating traders for more than 20 years, with live programming hosted by a variety of professional traders during market hours. And now they are expanding their reach with the Tiger's Den, available to all Tigers and Tigresses for just $1 for the year. There's no catch or added costs when you join our community of traders. In the Tiger's Den, you can look over the shoulders of Tom O'Brien and the other TFNN hosts while they analyze charts during their live Tiger TV programs. And join an interactive trading community with hundreds of members exchanging ideas. Interact with other Tigers and Tigresses as they share trading ideas, news analysis and discuss the market action all trading day, even at night and on the weekends. The Tiger's Den at Discord is accessible on mobile or tablets as well. So it's always at your reach. To sign up today and become a part of this educational community of traders, just visit the front page 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. TFNN airs live financial content streamed live on TFNN.com and TFNN's YouTube channel with Tiger TV, live every market day from 8.30 a.m. to 4.00 p.m. Eastern for free. Each host is an experienced trader and gives their take on the market while taking calls and questions live from around the world. From the moment the market opens until the closing bell sounds, Tiger TV has eight different shows with expert hosts to help you make the right moves with your money. Watch online at TFNN.com or on TFNN's YouTube channel and become the investor you were born to be TFNN, educating investors. This segment is brought to you by Think or Swim. For more information, just click the Think or Swim banner on the front page of TFNN.com Welcome back, folks. David White was just a very special man. He was born a special man. For those of you that don't know, David was born on February 29th. February 29th. And I always had fun, I guess, with him, because he got to celebrate that birthday, you know, twice or I would say, he liked to celebrate on the 28th versus March the 1st out there. I like to celebrate it for him on both of those days. Just think he's the only person I've ever met born on March, on February 29th out there. But I just think that that was just one of the other unique things that made him the individual that made him such a special person. I heard Tommy talking about how Dave was a perfectionist out there and I really became to understand that over the last two and a half years as we've been building this scanner which, you know, we'd run into obstacles and I would be like, I want to get this done now or I need this next thing and Dave was very patient, methodical as you know person out there and was like, Steve, we're going to get this thing done right the first time. We wouldn't move on to the next aspect.  Very much a perfectionist and I really do appreciate that about Dave and I really think that's what each of us here are trying to do is use our tools sincerely provide you with the most accurate information that we have and our interpretation of that information out there. So yeah, very special man. I do have the charts here for the nugget that are up on my screen, SNP. So what you can see the difference between the nugget and the GDX here in the case of the nugget, we take a look at this chart and I'd say, oh boy, you know the way that it dealt with this TD9 count breakdown level of 3926 might really be significant, even though it's got that confirmed A to B equal CD to upside, might be signaling to us that it wants to pull all the way back to 3392 as an example. What I liked about the GDX chart was the fact that we saw that price was trading above that level, granted it hasn't taken it out, still just a little bit better in view than I was looking so real quickly here back to the GDX, just for SNP, since that's what you're following, the GDX TD9 count breakout area that you'll be watching on any kind of retracement out here is 3657 and you're at 3827. I realize that's a $2 move, that's a, you know, about 7% or so a tight move on this instrument. The real key area support, or another key area support I guess before that would be its Bola structured profile which said 3787. I'd say if you get a close blow, that's a problem, but we did close blow it on Friday, opened right back up this morning out there, it's got that roadsman communicator. So watch those support levels for yourself inside of Nugget, but at this stage here, until things totally reverse, you got to like what gold is doing and you have to like about what the miners are doing as well. So hope that helps you out. Let's go to the next question out here. This is from Alton. And Alton writes in, he wants to take a look at EGO and EGO, I'm not sure what it is, but it doesn't matter. What we can see here about EGO is that the price is taking on prior resistance. So on the trading day of February 2nd, 2023 this confirmed a roadsman communicator top. It confirmed that when it generated that bearish dark cloud cover candle. That sets up resistance at the high and the high was the day before and that high was 998. On Friday, you close below 998. You got up to 1009, but you rejected that resistance level. That is resistance. This morning you have done the same. Now, volume on Friday was 1.3 million shares pushing into 1.8 million shares. 1.3 million shares out there. So no surprise that it's being tested again. What you really want to see out here for the next bullish signal would be a close above that high. And again that high Alton is up at the 998 area. If you get that, you should be off to the races and you may in fact get a large A to B equal CD to the upside. We take a look at the weekly type frame chart. Price above all resistance levels. So this looks very good. The monthly chart is above all resistance levels. So that looks very well. That looks very good as well. If I look at a 30 minute time frame chart out here, it has a roadsman communicator topping pattern that has simply led to a test with inside the profile support area down at the 991 area and resistance up at 1009. There's the next level of support on a further decline out here and there would be an A to B equal CD towards that 972 level. This on a 30 minute basis is where price had broken out from. So that is EGO and that was for Alton. The next request and I think the only other request that I have right now so if if you if you've got a request I'll take them. If I've overlooked yours please just retype it back in. But I believe we're going to take a look at the 10-year interest rates out here and this is going to be for CODA. CODA was it? Yeah, it was CODA inside the Tiger's Den. So let's switch charts here. I'm going to just switch over to the black background charts. CODA will take a look at it see what the signals it's providing us if anything out here. Now the interesting thing when I take a look at this chart, CODA and I'm sure you recognize this and I believe you said you were short rates out here. Here's an interesting thing. If you're ever looking for an island top, I would say that the 10-year treasury, that's what we're looking at right now, certainly generated that and that was on the trading day of February 2nd. So folks, if you're ever wondering what an island top is, it's where we would have a gap to the upside on a prior session. So the prior session here would have been March the 1st, very next trading day, this gap's up, March the 2nd. Then the next day it gaps to the downside. The high of that gap to the downside was up at the 402 level, which was well below the actual low of that candle that created that island. That is a bearish signal out there and we can see that the market certainly moved lower. Now what we can also see out here is price testing support. So price pulled back to the February 2nd low, anywhere between the range of $3.33 $3.33, I should say and the high of $3.40 out there, interest rate wise for the 10-year. Right now you're at $3.46 out here. All that I have on this for any kind of signals, there would really be two Cota two to pay attention to. The first signal is a fact on the daily time frame that we've pulled back to a swing point. We've tested it and we've rejected it. We've done that a couple times. The second is the weekly profiles. The weekly profile shows support at 3.39% which is where price got down to last week and it has found support. Now it is a slightly bearish structured profile. So the resistance zone on a move higher is between $3.56 and $3.67 out there. You also wanted the TNX. Let's go ahead and populate that on our screen and see what kind of signal information we get. And now we've got, no we don't have it, why didn't that come up? What did Stevie do? T and TYX. Thank you Cota. I'm not exactly myself today. That's an understatement. So if we take a look at this Cota, about the only thing that I, so really the same kind of thing was taking place. If I look at a swing point, I come back to the swing point from December 7. And that swing point, the, on this latest go round, that swing point, high of that swing point was tested on March the 13th, today's the 20th. So last Monday that was tested and rejected. So that's a key level to watch. Price is below profiles here. So I just simply have to go back and take a look at the weekly timeframe. And on the weekly timeframe, price has support. The 30 year treasury interest rate at $3.50 price got down there last week. This is a very structured profile. I would say that rates would be coming down if we saw a close below $3.50 $3.50 3.5%. You know what I mean. And because that would be a close below the bottom of its weekly profile. So not on a daily basis, but on a weekly timeframe, that's where we would need to see price. So both on the 10 year and on the 30 year prices pulled back to test support out there. So thank you so much for the question and let's see here. I think we might have a caller. We know we've got Brent in Martinez, California. Hey Brent, thanks for calling. Thanks for holding. How are you today? I'm hanging in there, Steve. I know all of us are trying to cope with what happened with David and it's very difficult to deal with. I've gone through too much of this lately and I have to. I hear you. I guess deal with it the way you do. I mean, there has to be some higher purpose for somebody as quality as David and I've had too many good people. I know lately have had the same thing happen. So that's the only way that I can cope with it personally. Hey Brent, we'll be back in just a few moments and hold those thoughts. Those are good ones. We'll be right back. 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 The opening call newsletter is written by Basil Chapman, creator of the trading methodology known as the Chapman Wave. The Chapman Wave up-down sequence gives you an edge in identifying price turns, finding the peaks and valleys in stock prices.  First-time subscribers also get a 30-day money back guarantee. If you're not satisfied, let us know and you'll get a full refund within 30 days of signing up. tfnn.com Educating investors Everything in the universe is governed by the Fibonacci sequence. This mathematical principle is responsible for everything from the most aesthetically pleasing artwork to patterns in the stock market. Stay on top of stock patterns you can take advantage of. Sign up for the Fibonacci 24-7 newsletter at tfnn.com When you subscribe, you'll get a weekly report from veteran day trader Larry Pezzavento 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. First time subscribers also get a 30-day money back guarantee. If you're not satisfied, let us know and you'll get a full refund within 30 days of signing up. Subscribe to the Fibonacci 24-7 newsletter today tfnn.com Educating investors Are China A shares hot or not? If you trade China A shares now may be time to take a closer look. Trade C-H-A-U or C-H-A-D Directions daily CSI 300 China A share bull and bear ETFs. China A shares in either direction. Visit DirectionInvestments.com today. An investor should consider the investment objectives, risks, charges and expenses of the Direction shares carefully before investing. The Prospectus and Summary Prospectus contain this and other information about Direction shares. To obtain a Prospectus or Summary Prospectus, please contact Direction shares at<PHONE_NUMBER>. The Prospectus or Summary Prospectus should be read carefully before investing. An investment in the funds is subject to risk including the possible loss of principal. The funds are designed to be utilized only by sophisticated investors such as traders and active investors. Distributor, Four Side Fund Services LLC. This program is brought to you by Vista Gold traded on the NYSE American and TSX under the symbol VGZ. Good back folks. I'll do a C-Straight to the upside same thing with the Prospectus inside the S&P 500 and Brent my apology for going to you without looking at the clock realizing we were so close to a break out there so I hated to do that and yeah it's a tough one you know and like I said my tough thing has always been I believe so much in that life happens for us but boy when it comes to situations like this it's one I've always struggled with but like you said you know you just gotta have a I just have a belief that there's a bigger reason behind it all I don't know how else to cope with it yeah exactly it's the only way I can deal with it and I think the one lesson I've tried to take from it's a hard lesson to deal with but I just try to and of course I thank God every day for the life I've been given the children I have, the life I have I just try to make the most of it every day that's all you can do yeah there's no doubt about that but thank you, thank you for your call thank you for sharing your thoughts and feelings and emotions about Dave and it's gonna take us a while I think each of us to get through this but today's a good day just it's been hard for me to talk about it anyways Brent, so you want to take a look at the Russell 2000 which is having a nice day out there it's up about 31 points about 8-10% back that's leading the charge to the upside so what's your take, what information what can I provide you with I would appreciate your analysis and then I guess my one observation that I had was that if you're looking at the last a number of days we've kind of had this back and forth and back and forth and today it looks like a pretty bullish candle I just wanted to see what you thought about it and I do recall you talking about I think you did the 1.618 expansion of the of the A-B equal CD but just other than that what else you had to on that what I do have Brent is that today this will complete let me hold on hold on a second here so I was going to say this will complete a TD9 account bottom of the day but I have to knowing that I'm not my full self it will only do that if it closes below 175880 let me make sure I get the right close yes 17 175880 so price I think I misspoke out there because I was indicating to people that it will complete it will definitely complete a TD9 account pattern today and that is not correct so take that back folks and write that down on your pad of paper it will only complete a TD9 account bottom and it needs to happen today is a close below 175880 if we did get that Brent then what that would signal to you and I is that price should at least rally up to the it's an oscillator and change line which is currently in about the 1810 ish level out there the weekly chart if we go back and we take a look at the weekly chart very much like the Dow I put up the charts earlier that I use really to showcase Bud Rolfe's work out there his primary trading range I referred to them as horizontal trading ranges now and when you break through in this case here it was a descending price channel often times price will come back and test that now in the case of the Dow it had done it number times in the case of the Russell 2000 this is the first test of that so that's a bullish signal out there the monthly time frame chart still has a TD9 account bottom the weekly's got a Rhodes Ventim indicator bottom and we may get a TD9 account bottom today in the Russell if we don't then what it still needs is that bullish reversal candle to confirm a bottom out there so the question is will we get some type of a pullback or retracement you know today and the only thing that I've got out here to even suggest anything right now it looks to me like would be the 30 minute time frame chart and on a 30 minute time frame chart price basically got up to its second TD9 account resistance area at 1776 we're starting to see price pullback right now I don't have well yeah I really don't have any other kind of a I suppose I could put it so if I were to try to put an A to B equal CD pattern Brent on a 30 minute time frame chart the C point that I'd have to you the B point I'd have to use would be the same candle as the C point and I really kind of hate doing that out there so what this does show me is that at least price might be pulling back to the 1757 level so I know that was a lot of confusion help me on confusion and now that's all good stuff if I just ask quickly which contractor you looking at I'm looking at the June contract okay on the same page yeah yeah so I'm looking at the June contract and you know I don't see any topping patterns intraday other than really what I just gave to you so it die you know what I well I will just have to wait until tomorrow to see if we get that TD 9 count bottom I think that's really with regard to the Russell if we do then we've got synergy amongst all four of the equity future contracts that they're definitely communicating to us that they want to form a bottom that's both a bullish and a bear sign because if we take out those lows well we know what that means yeah just keeping on the vix like you mentioned and all plays out so thank you so much you know have yourself a good day I will I'll do it hey Brent thank you very much for calling and I really appreciate it helps me out a lot so thank you for doing that that was Brent in Martinez California um look at GSM so yes so there was a question let me go to this first I haven't been really good about keeping track of what I should look at so there's a question about take a look at the financials and weed out there so somebody took a long trade in weed let me come back to my soft commodity chart out here I'm just going to switch panels just to provide this individual with some information to pay attention to so I don't believe that I saw a bottom pattern inside of weed out there that doesn't mean that it hasn't bottom I'm looking at the May contract for weed up here which we can see right now is consolidating with inside its daily profile so you have sellers that are lined up at 721 60 and buyers lined up at 667 I wish I could provide you with more information than that but that's what I've got with regard to weed we'll just stay here for the moment and take a look at the at the XLF so with regard to the financials so and also try to get a XLF chart fired up I can't do it there which right here let me just get the XLF chart fired up on my other screen just see if there's anything that pops out so we take a look at the XLF this person this individual went long and so when I take a look at the chart patterns here if I'm looking for was there any support boy on the financial sector oh I'm I'm sorry I'm on you USB that's another question geez Louise TV get your stuff together so in the case of the financial sector Friday was a TD nine count bottom so that was bar number nine today will become the bar falling bar number nine so you're long the financials that sounds like a solid trade to me you would close that out if you got a close below Friday's low that low out there is three dollars and eighty nine cents now there's a profile this in place out here at thirty one eighty five there's only two lines that you see thirty one eighty five and thirty four twenty nine the reason you only see two lines the center and the bottom are the same exact place thirty one eighty five so that is going to be your significant level of resistance on a further rally if you can get above that that's going to be a big positive that's going to suggest that price may want to target the thirty four twenty nine level now before price would get up there it has to deal with its oscillator and change line I'll show you where that's at by switching back to a different set of charts the white background charts as we take a look at that thirty two sixty three or thereabouts is your resistance zone for the XLF on its daily time frame and you'll see the TD nine count pattern on a monthly basis prices pulled back to test support that was the bottom of its monthly profile and I don't have any kind of a bottoming signal inside of the XLF for its weekly time frame so we've got to go with the daily and what the monthly is communicating to you and I on a thirty minute basis I don't have any reasons to share with you that that the XLF is going to top right here so the XLF looks like a good trade just make sure you use proper position sizing out there that way you'll stay out of the same trouble all these banks have gotten into you don't want to be over leveraged you want to have your stop and your exits in place at the time of entry Steve Rhodes with TFNN we'll be right back if you're looking for potential trading setups in the stock market then Rocket Equities & 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 & Options report today with a thirty 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 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 key indices selective stocks and commodities subscribe to the opening call newsletter at TFNN.com the opening call newsletter is written by Basil Chapman creator of the trading methodology known as the Chapman Wave the Chapman Wave up down sequence gives you an edge in identifying price turns finding the peaks and valleys in stock prices get the opening call newsletter by Basil Chapman and your inbox every day first time subscribers also get a 30 day money back guarantee if you're not satisfied let us know and you'll get a full refund within 30 days of signing up TFNN.com Educating Investors everything in the universe is governed by the Fibonacci sequence this mathematical principle is responsible for everything from the most aesthetically pleasing artwork to patterns in the stock market to stay on top of stock patterns you can take advantage of sign up for the Fibonacci 24 7 newsletter at TFNN.com when you subscribe you'll get a weekly report from veteran day trader Larry Pezzavento 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 first time subscribers also get a 30 day money back guarantee if you're not satisfied let us know and you'll get a full refund within 30 days of signing up subscribe to the Fibonacci 24 7 newsletter today TFNN.com Educating Investors TFNN has launched the Tiger's Den hosted at Discord TFNN has been educating traders for more than 20 years with live program and hosted by a variety of professional traders during market hours the Tiger's Den available to all Tigers and Tigris for just $1 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 Welcome back folks if you sent a request by email and I overlooked it I will make sure that I will respond back to you personally Roger I don't know that I'll get to your request out there but I certainly will follow back up with you after lunch out there let's try to close out the show by take a look at USB a couple of instruments out here USB this is for one of our dinners now what I don't see is any kind of a bottom signal what you do have though is a hammer candle that formed back on March the 16th so that low is going to be critical to you if price were to close below 3626 this tells you that this still wants lower price it has triggered a rogement indicator signal but this requires a bullish reversal candle to confirm a bottom the weekly time frame to suggest that this is a bottom so you got to rely on the monthly and the monthly shows a TD9 count top that took price all the way back to its breakout level of support of 3417 so 3417 and that bullish hammer candle from March 16th down at the 3272 levels those are the areas to keep an eye on you close below that and USB wants to head lower there's a request to take a look at the light sweet crude so let's pop those charts up on our screen the daily chart we're taking a look at the May contract if you take a look at the daily chart out here this will complete a TD9 count bottom this is the following bar number nine what light sweet crude should do for its May contract is target a source letter and change line that is currently printed at 7151 there's a TD9 count on the 30 minute time frame and that stopped the rally out there that was at 9.30 this morning when price got up to 6706 is going to suggest an A to B equal CDT upside recognize though that you do have resistance at 6764 that is a TD9 count breakdown level for its 30 minute time frame we've got some nice bottoming patterns on the intraday charts the five hour, the four hour, the two hour there's one hour chart out there so it does look like light sweet crude has in fact bottomed out there and so that should impact the XLE the energy sector as well folks thanks so much for your patience thanks for your kindness all of your good words out there it's going to hurt, it's going to hurt for a while rest in peace my good friend David White


Welcome everyone to the 26th meeting in 2018 of the Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee. We've just got one item of business to decide first, and that's a decision on taking business in private. It's proposed that the committee takes items 7 and 8 in private. These are items of the evidence that we're about to hear from the Cabinet Secretary on the Trade Bill and on further evidence received on the Prescription Scotland Bill. Does gyda glawr y gaeligol am fy codelau. Felly, I will move on to Origin officer item 5, which is the Trade Bill. This is our second evidence session on the legislative consent memorandum for the UK Trade Bill, and we have before us Michael Russell, the Cabinet Secretary for Government Business and Constitutional Relations. Welcome again, Mr Russell. He is accompanied by Graham Fisher, who is a solicitor for the Scottish Government and Stephen Sadler, head of trade policy team at the Scottish Government, so welcome to you. One of the committee's roles is to look at the LCMs that contain delegated powers and report to the relevant lead committee, so our questions today are focused on the delegated powers in the trade bill. Cabinet Secretary, I think that you may have an opening statement before we move to questions. Thank you very much, convener. I just want to say a word or two about the bill. We are looking at the trade bill, which does require the consent of the Scottish Parliament. However, as I said last week to the Finance and Constitution Committee, events on legislative consent for the withdrawal act have effectively overturned 19 years of constitutional convention and practice. The UK Government sought the Parliament's consent on that occasion. It was refused, but the UK Government proceeded with its legislation. We are therefore seeking urgent discussions with the UK Government on how to strengthen and protect the soil convention. We will be looking again at how we can embed the requirement for the Scottish Parliament's consent in law and to strengthen inter-governmental processes. In the meantime, we have made it clear that we will not be bringing forward further legislative consent motions on Brexit bills. We will work with the UK Government to develop the trade bill to ensure Scottish interests are protected as far as we can, but we will not be inviting the Parliament to consider the issue of consent legislation if the UK Government reserves the right to set aside that view on all bills for Brexit. The trade bill is designed to operate alongside the EU withdrawal act to help to ensure continuity in the UK's existing trade and investment arrangements. You know that clause 1 provides powers for UK and Scottish ministers to make regulations, clause 2 provides powers for UK and Scottish ministers to make regulations to implement qualifying international trade agreements. The UK Government has said in most cases that the implementation of any obligations within existing international trade agreements will, however, be dealt with through the EU withdrawal act. It has identified certain circumstances where that will not be possible, and it is the provisions in clause 2 of the trade bill that are intended to bridge that gap. The LCM that we submitted last December set out the concerns that we had with the bill as introduced. Since then, I am pleased to say that there have been some changes made and the bill to be considered in the House of Lords later today is better than the one that was introduced. We still have significant concerns in two areas that are set out in correspondence between Derek Mackay and Liam Fox before recess, and I think that you have had access to that letter. The first is a direct read across to section 12 and schedules 2 and 3 of the EU withdrawal act, which, among other things, gives Scottish ministers powers to fix retained EU law. Since currently standing in the trade bill, as with the EU withdrawal act, Scottish ministers will have the power to amend direct retained EU legislation in areas that are otherwise devolved, but not where section 12 framework regulations have been made by the UK Government. Our other concern is relation to the trade remedies authority. The TRA will have an important role in the development of UK trade policy. It will undertake trade remedies investigations across the UK, which will inevitably touch on devolved areas of significance to Scotland. Its decisions could have substantial impact on businesses and consumers, yet, despite repeated representations from us and from the Welsh Government, the trade bill still does not provide a role for the devolved administrations, for example, in relation to the appointment of board members. We are therefore going to continue to press for the bill to be amended to address those points. I am going slightly off script, but you mentioned inter-governmental relations. As you know, myself and some other conveners sit on an inter-parliamentary Brexit forum. The next meeting of that forum will be in Wales. I would expect that we may come up with recommendations on how the Government should proceed in future. I guess that you are amenable to having a meeting with conveners after that. This is a very live discussion. The Welsh Government published proposals last year for discussion. We have published in our trade paper last week some proposals. Our original Scotland's Place in Europe paper in December 2016 outlined areas of devolution where we thought there needed to be changes. The PAC Act Committee, with which you are familiar, I think that Bernard Jenkins sits on your group or is involved with your group. Bernard Jenkins's PAC Act Committee report is very germane in this regard and looks at the difficulties. The GMC plenary, except the last GMC plenary, accepted that the inter-governmental relations should be reviewed, but nothing has really happened as yet. I will be making proposals this week to David Lidington for issues around the Sewell Convention. This is a very live discussion. I was also at the British Irish Association's annual meeting in Oxford this weekend, where again this issue was one that caused a lot of discussion. I think that most people, from whatever part of the spectrum, accept that Brexit has been too heavy a burden for the current devolve settlement to bear. There are things that don't work and aren't working and how does that work again? I know no secret that I believe in independence but I also believe in functioning systems between Governments while they exist and that needs to be addressed. I think that the urgency in this is coming from the Welsh and Scottish Governments. It would be good to see an urgency from the UK Government too. That's very useful and we'll have further discussions about that, but we'll go on to the matter that we're here for. Last week, the UK Minister of State said that the intention under the general procurement agreement was to bring forward duplicate arrangements as to what are in place at the moment. Does that mean that there has been the opportunity for substantial changes to be made in Scotland that diverge from what we have at the moment, given that the procurement is devolved? I think that that depends on the GPA rather than on the devolved Administrations. We can indicate what we believe to be desirable changes and indeed some of that was presaged in our own continuity bill. More of it is indicated in our trade paper where, for example, we look at issues such as human rights, trade union rights, environmental rights, climate justice and say that they should be part of the process. Indeed, it's interesting to note that I think that the Commons Foreign Affairs Committee today has a report that is saying that they believe rights-based negotiation and trade should be part of it, but that will depend upon the GPA itself. Of course, the EU conditions in that can be altered by the will of the EU members, changing the EU regulations, which of course expand and build upon the GPA regulations. I became to see that change too. The difficulty for us will be getting our voice heard, because I don't think that the UK Government is very keen that we are a part of this, and I think that they will try to ensure that that isn't the case. Previously, you've written extensively about your support for free market economics and neoliberal economics and how it shouldn't be barriers to that type of economic approach. For example, could we see changes in Scotland that would prevent, for example, the continuation of being unable to pay public contractors living wage in procurement? Or, you know, we don't need to go down the whole charade of tendering for ferry or other services? I'm as ever delighted that you continue to be a fan of my writings, but clearly I keep having to refer you to the opening chapter of that book, which indicates that the book was not about that. But never mind, we're not going to dispute about these matters here. This will indeed, but there's no point in having this conversation again. It is on the record in many, many places, and I look forward to reviewing some of your own books, I have to say. The reality of the situation is that I think that I'll contract out the reading of them in these circumstances. I'm sure I will. I think that we could probably go too far on this, convener. Let's move on, shall we? I am very keen to see the best possible systems in place. You refer to ferry tendering. My own position on that, as the MSP that represents more ferry routes than its constituency than any other, was absolutely clear and consistent in the beginning. I'd rather there hadn't been a tender process. I think that the tender process was a distraction. I'd like not to see a tender process in future, but during the tender process I was four square behind, not just the CalMac itself but behind the trade unions. I spoke at events to say that. As far as I am concerned, we want to have a progressive, modern approach that involves all those issues. I know that you and I don't often agree on things and I think that perhaps you enjoy that, but on this occasion I want to be on the same side as you to make sure that those things are within our ability to influence in public sector procurement and in public sector contracts and tenders. I would want to make sure that that happens. Anything that we can do, we should do. It would be better if we could legislate for all those things ourselves. I would like to be able to do so. When we pursued some of those issues through the public procurement bill when it came through, they were rejected by the Government. With this change, there is more opportunity for us not to have that situation. I don't know whether that change will produce that, because what is going to happen is that the UK Government is trying to replicate those structures. In the case that Scotland was negotiating in its own interests, we would be endeavouring to do so. In terms of parliamentary scrutiny, there is an indication that negative procedure would be used for much of that. Do you think that that is adequate? No, I would like to see substantial scrutiny of those matters. One of the difficulties in the trade bill has been trying to push those issues forward, but I would like to see substantial scrutiny in those matters. In the bill, clause 1, 1A and F provides that UK ministers, all the devolved authorities, also have a power to make such provision, as is considered appropriate. In consequence of any modifications to the list of central Government entities in the Government procurement agreement to be used after the UK has acceded to the agreement. It appears that modifications could be needed due to machinery of government changes, and that is mentioned at paragraph 50 of the delegate's powers memorandum. Could you give us any further information as to how the Scottish ministers might use this power? I couldn't, but I am hoping that one of the people with me can give me that information. If they can't, we will have to write to you about it. We may have to do a combination of both, but when you took evidence from UK ministers and UK officials last week, they put on record the fact that they would want to be working closely with Scottish Government officials on matters like that, particularly with the entities provisions. That is something that we are continuing to discuss with them. We haven't got to a position yet where we have been swapping lists or anything as detailed as that, but it is something that we would want to consider with them and, obviously, bring that back to Parliament. We will feel free to write to us. We will write to you on the detail of that question, and it is clearly an important one. That is fine. Stuart McMillan. Thank you. Good morning. Good afternoon, cabinet secretary. I have some questions just regarding clause 2 of the trade bill. Certainly, in the Finance and Constitution Committee's discussion of the bill on 21 February, academic experts who were in attendance raised concerns about the clarity and the potential width of clause 2, as it applies not only to international trade agreements, which are also free trade agreements, but also to an international agreement that mainly relates to trade. That is referencing clause 8.1. Also, an official appeared with the Minister for State last week. He explained that that expression will cover an agreement that is a trade as a majority of its content. Does the Scottish Government consider that the expression is appropriate without further definition in the bill, or do you have any particular concerns in this matter? We do not think that it is appropriate without further definition. This is a matter that has had some discussion. I think that what I should do again with your permission, convener, is write to the committee with a full exposition of why we do not think that it is appropriate, because it is a substantial technical issue in there. We will write to the committee with that. Clause 2. Last week, the Minister for Trade said that, in each case in which we negotiated with partners to roll over agreements, we will look for just that. As few changes as possible to provide certainty on this, I touched upon some of the questions from Neil Findlay a few moments ago. In terms of the Scottish Government's position, do you agree with that, or do you consider that the regulation under clause 2 might make some significant and different arrangements for Scotland? I think that the minister's view is very much a view that the UK Government takes of every single one of those issues, which is that there is an existing set of arrangements and they will simply be continued forward. Anybody who has any cursory involvement with trade knows that that does not happen. At the moment that something is up for grabs, it is up for grabs. An example in this in actual fact lies in that other Geneva-based organisation, not the GPA but the WTO. At the beginning of this process of the UK seeking independent membership, the EU and the UK approached the WTO jointly with a joint letter saying that we are looking to roll over the arrangement. It produced almost immediately a negative reaction from a group of key players, some of whom are old trading partners of the UK, saying, hang on a minute, that it can't work like that. The moment things are on the table, they are on the table. That has been a fear under the GPA that that would be the case. The House of Commons committee has also said that they expect substantive changes to be necessary. I think that the minister was expressing his policy intention. I don't think that he is expressing what is actually going to take place. Of course, if you were an optimist, you would think that the best changes could take place and we could go in and back for everything that we actually want. The reality is that every country will be doing that and every organisation will be doing that. If there is something that has niggled with a country for 10 or 15 years that didn't get quite the quota on something that they wanted to be, this is a good opportunity to change it. Also, balance of trade has changed over the years. I think that it is also significant that not a single rollover of a trade arrangement has yet taken place. In other words, there has been no indication that there will be a seamless rollover. There are some big questions in there. In the best of all possible worlds, in the Panglossian worldview, everything just gets rolled over. I think that it is unlikely. The final question is just about the issue of the trade agreements. Does the Scottish Government agree with the UK Government's position that it is more appropriate that the regulations should be introduced, or would you prefer any changes to take place via primary legislation? I think that the issue here is scrutiny rather than anything else. The issue is to make sure that if there is a debate and discussion about that, there should be that scrutiny. The transparency is important in this. That is also a wider issue that I know that the Finance and Constitution Committee has considered, which is the issue of what scrutiny should be applied to trade arrangements at every level. There has been very little democratic scrutiny at Westminster. In our new paper, we have argued for much stronger democratic scrutiny, and this is perhaps an opportunity to ensure that that takes place. Tom Arthur. Thank you, convener, and good morning, cabinet secretary. In your preceding remarks, you stated that, if I understood you correctly, you thought it would be unlikely that there would be a seamless rollover. The period allowed for with regards to implementation of the clause 2 regulations is three years. Do you think that it is likely that that can be achieved within three years? Therefore, do you think that it would be likely that the extension of this sunsetting period would have to be invoked? I think that it is almost impossible presently to know how long things will take, but three years would be a very optimistic view of what was possible. Let's remember where we are in the wider issue of Brexit. We are 198 days from requiring the exit agreement to be found. We're not there. The exit agreement is the start of a process, not the end of a process. It's the start of the withdrawal negotiations in the detail of the future framework. That is scheduled for the transition period if that happens, which is 21 months. I don't think that anybody believes now that that huge task can be undertaken in 21 months. If you look at all the associated activities, you're saying, will the transition period be extended? Is the transition period extended? Are there big implications for that? I just think that all the timescales appear to be completely out of kilter. Before we get into too many hypotheticals, as I understand the Department for International Trade, the UK Government has given a political commitment to consult with the UK Government on the use of an extension. However, I understand that the Scottish Government's position is that it would like that on the face of the bill, where it becomes a requirement to consult with the Scottish Government with regard to an extension. Can you update the committee as to the Scottish Government's position? It remains our position. There needs to be a recognition of reality. Is there any circumstances that you can envisage where the Scottish Government would require an extension of the powers that the UK Government would not? Or is there any specifically devolved circumstances in which that would be required? I think that the provision to extend lies with the UK Government but does not lie with the devolved Government. Would there be situations that could arise whereby it would be required for the Scottish Government to extend an extension but not the UK Government? We are now going into arcane areas of possibility. I do not want to go into them. Officials need to keep a regular liaison on that. On the general issue of how long things take, there is an optimistic view again, as there has been a pull-over of things like that, which I do not share. However, the officials will have to keep close contact on those things. Arcane is what this committee is all about? Well, indeed. Mr Finlay, you wanted to come back in. You just said that the complexity of this is enormous. This is an attempt to unravel something that has only been going on for 40 or so years. Does that offer any reflection on the 18 months period that was assumed for another extraction from another political entity? I think that what it shows is that preparation is all. Therefore, if at any stage during the Brexit process, those proposing it had brought forward a 600-page white paper full of detail, then that would have been helpful and useful. However, as that did not happen, then clearly the consequences of that are now showing? You do not think that, given what you have witnessed here, that 18-month period was just as unrealistic as a three-year period. A serious point, preparation is all. The work that was being done was comprehensive, and I like to think that the competence of those involved was unquestionable, unlike in the present circumstances. There you are, Mr Finlay. Of course. Alison Harris. Do you consider that the bill could usefully include any further provisions to improve the scrutiny process for the Scottish statutory instruments to be laid under it, and indeed any instruments that should be subject to joint scrutiny at Westminster and in this Parliament? In particular, clause 5 provides for a report to be issued, which would give details of significant changes to the UK free trade agreement, as compared to the EU's pre-exit agreement with another state. In advance of laying any regulations under the clause by the UK Government, would it be useful for the scrutiny process if such a report, where relevant was similarly required in advance of any regulations to be laid by Scottish ministers under clause 2? I think that there is a specific point of whether the bill can do it, and I think that there are improvements to any bill that can do it. We saw that with the continuity bill, that there are improvements that can be brought in. The wider point, and therefore I would expect officials to be involved in those discussions and to involve ministers in discussions as required. On the wider point of scrutiny, particularly of trade, there is a very strong argument for saying that the trading arrangements that existed in the UK before EU accession will be very different now. There was a tradition that there was no great parliamentary scrutiny. There is still a view that there shouldn't be great parliamentary scrutiny. I think that, given the nature of international trade, it is dependent on some of the issues that Mr Finlay has raised in terms of rights, environmentalism, climate change. There needs to be greater scrutiny of trade and ethical scrutiny of trade, too, and in those circumstances I would envisage a much more transparent system. The judgment then would be what is in the bill transparent enough or not. It doesn't meet the standards that we have set out, and therefore we would want to continue to develop and change those. I believe that those are parts that have changed during the initial process of the bill, and they can change further. On the general point, I am keen to see greater scrutiny of all legislation, particularly trade legislation. I am really thinking now that it would be useful for the scrutiny of such regulations to be laid by the Scottish Minister under this bill if the SSI protocol, which the Scottish Government has developed with the Parliament for the Scottish statutory instruments under the European Withdrawal Act, could really be extended to those regulations. The bill provides for concurrent powers to be available to the UK ministers and the Scottish ministers to make regulations under clause 1-2. Do you anticipate that the UK statutory instruments would be laid under the bill, which have or include a devolved subject matter, and if so, are you able to give an indication of how many you think this might be? I am not, because I think that that will be a matter that will take some time to develop. It has taken, as I will say in my statement this afternoon, many months to get to the stage where we have an estimate of the total amount of mitigation that we require on existing SSIs. Quite clearly, we would want to co-operate with Westminster on this, provided our policy intentions were the same, and we believe that it was in our interests to do so. If we didn't, then we wouldn't. Are you able to give any indication of how many SSIs could be laid under the bill? I am just not able to do that. It is almost impossible to make that estimate. In fact, I will drop the word almost. It is impossible to make that estimate. We do not have enough information to allow us to do so. I am sorry about that. The UK Government can give you any indication of when they will be in a position to start providing such information. Any other members have any questions? We have raced through that session at Mr Russell, which will help you to prepare for your statement. Thank you very much. We will write to you as a result. We have a number of points that we have said that we will provide in writing. If the officials can make sure that we know about any commitments that we have made, we will honour those commitments. Thank you very much. I will suspend it to allow the cabinet secretary to leave.