Right, let's go for this one from neurodivergent magic, autistic identity issues. All right, so today we're going to talk about the concepts of enmeshment and individuation, but we're going to specifically look at these concepts through the lens of autism. Hi, my name is Megan, and welcome to neurodivergent magic, the YouTube channel for accessible and relatable neurodivergent content. Let's start by defining some terms. Enmeshment is when two or more people have their identities intertwined. One person cannot fully be themselves without the presence or impact of this other person or people. And individuation is essentially the opposite of enmeshment. It is when we come into our own, when we become our own full individual people. Now I do want to point out that Western cultures tend to put a lot of emphasis on individuation and individualism in general. So for people trying to move away from that hyperindividualism, enmeshment, this idea of relying on one another and not fully being yourself without someone else might sound kind of appealing, but the truth Yeah, I mean, there is, we do definitely have an issue with, like, we are becoming very hyperindividual individualization thing. I cannot, hyperindividualization, I feel like a lot, like a lot of the content that I see, particularly on YouTube is like, you've got to be completely self-reliant, you've got to not want validation from other people. And pretty much one of the main functions of social interaction is to be validated in your experiences, your thoughts, or at least contrast them with another person. And I think that's something that's lost a little bit, because you want to get to a point where you are like, if you're in a relationship, you don't want to be hyperindividualized because it's not going to really work, you're not going to work as a team. So you want to, there is a word for it. You've got to work together. I can't remember what the word was, it's a good word. I'll probably think about it in a sec, but let's go over. Enmeshment is not a healthy relationship dynamic. It is not interdependence, it is codependence. Some of the key problematic features of enmeshments include triangulation, gray rocking, and gaslighting, all of which I will explain here in a second.  I'm just saying enmeshment's not the answer. Now, what were those problematic things I was talking about earlier? So triangulation is when there's communication between at least three parties. There is person A who is upset with person B, and there is person C. You might wonder, what's person C doing there? You see, person A isn't going to talk to person B about being upset with them. Instead, they're going to yell at person C about person B and expect person C to go talk to person B for them. If this sounds childish, you are correct. A lot of children communicate this way, and unfortunately, a lot of emotionally immature adults do as well. I am not exempt from this. P.M. Furious, as I'm always somehow managing to irritate someone, I get nervous, so skeptical about approaching Thomas. Me too. I'm not the best at starting conversations with people that, unless I get very positive feedback instantly, I'm pretty much put off from talking to people. It's a lot to do with RSD. I think a lot of natural human needs are being lost. It's true. He used to have, I suppose, with the advent of the internet, we do have opportunities to connect with more people, but there are not always people around us. We might have had, I don't know, 10, 20, 30 years ago, we might have had a bit more of a community atmosphere around things, people helping each other. You see it a lot in specific villages. There's some really cool community groups within those villages that they support each other. They're actually really good for autistic people as well, because if they have some needs that they can't fulfill, then someone in the community can help them. If that person also has something that they need to fill, then someone else can help them. So it's a really good thing. It sounds, I did get the impression, it does sound very much like the whole codependency thing, but in terms of enmeshment, I'm just trying to think of things in my life that might be considered like that. I definitely do specifically at the workplace have a person, I always have a person that I talk to that helps me with things. And if I'm struggling to communicate, a lot of the time having this person to help me communicate definitely does help. I suppose you could consider that to be like triangulation, but it's never like in a mean kind of like I'm shouting at that person. It's always like, would you be able to help me with this? Maybe that's what they're talking about. I don't know if it's completely applicable to that idea of triangulation though. I grew up with a lot of enmeshment at home and I have definitely fallen into the triangulation pattern of communication in the past. It's tempting because it protects your ego. You don't have to confront the person you're upset with and see that you might be exaggerating or you might be actually in the wrong or maybe you shouldn't be quite as upset as you are. Instead, you talk to a third party, a third party who can neither confirm nor deny whether your anger is appropriate and so they just have to take it and listen. I'm not proud of using triangulation and I'm definitely trying to get away from it.   It means that you have room to grow and that's okay. Now, one of the other things I meant. Yeah, I guess so. I think there are also some circumstances where that might be quite important. Like, I can think of a lot of mediation services that that's basically triangulation. You're talking to a mediator and they're helping. You sort of mediate between each other because when you get together it's not a good situation. So sometimes it can be good. I don't think I really experience this a lot because I don't outwardly express a lot of negative emotion. It tends to be a very internal to me. If I'm upset, it tends not to be that I will act upset with somebody or if I'm angry with somebody, I tend not to, well, I pretty much never shout at people or call people names and things like that. It's just not something that I do. And it's something called gray rocking. So gray rocking is basically a way to protect yourself from judgment. Whenever someone is talking or asking you questions, you simply respond with the blandest, most neutral answers you can possibly think of, basically taking the form of a boring gray rock. This way the person has nothing to criticize about you, nothing to judge, and you can sort of slip under the radar. This is hugely problematic because gray rocking means that you can't be yourself. No one gets to know the real you.  And I'm not saying that I I do get this, but like, I mean, there isn't aspects that is very, very clear with autistic people. I've talked about it in this stream and talk about a lot. I like to find you like sometimes you just actually just don't know what you're feeling. So like how do you how do you respond emotively? You know, if you're not you're not feeling like you don't know what you're feeling in that moment, you know, so I'd say that there's a lot of situations where I might come across as doing that. But I think as well, like the way that I listen and I take on board what someone's saying is by like really being quiet, listening to how they're feeling, what they're saying. You know, sometimes if people are being very aggressive and overwhelming, then I will just like not not speak to them for a bit. But that's I think that's a lot to do with me because I'm especially I care about someone then like the work the impact of people's words and emotions can be really heightened to the point where like it could have like a meltdown or like stuff like that. So it doesn't happen with strangers. Definitely not. But like if you are close to some if I'm close to someone and something like that happens, then it's really difficult for me. When I get angry, I tend to go very pent up and let it out onto someone later on. Yeah, I guess I guess so.  As long as you're not like directing it towards somebody, you know, like they're receiving your anger and hate, like some some some people have done that. Like I know some people who are who are like that. And it's not a nice thing. But definitely like explaining and expressing how you're feeling about a certain situation. I guess it's normal. Like that's the whole validation aspect to socializing can get very strong emotions depending on how sensitive I am that day. That's another aspect, you know, definitely, definitely. Peace isn't something we should strive for. And there aren't sacrifices to be made. But everyone should be making those sacrifices. It shouldn't fall on one or two specific people to hide who they are in order to prevent other people from outrageous, disproportionate, angry or judgmental responses. And finally, I mentioned gaslighting. Gaslighting has become a pretty common buzzword these days. So you've probably heard it before, but you may not actually know what it means. Gaslighting is when someone makes you doubt your reality. In some way, they assert that their reality is more true, more reflective of the one objective reality than yours is.  Hopefully, I don't have to tell you why that's problematic. There is also different aspects of it. You have indirect and directs. The ones that they're mentioning is direct gaslighting. You're doing it for a reason. But not like it is very tied to this idea of narcissism. You say a lot of it with online content about narcissists. Gaslighting is very tied to that. But you don't have to be like that to gaslight someone. Everyone can do it. It doesn't matter how nice or pleasant you can be. Sometimes you just do. A lot of the time, it's unintentional. There's a lot of situations where parents of kids or teachers of kids or your boss or someone in your life or your partner may definitely undermine the experiences that you have as an autistic person unintentionally because they don't get it. They don't see and experience the world as you do and so it doesn't make sense to them. It can definitely happen. Your reality is just as valid as anybody else's and conflict resolution should rely on accepting and merging two realities instead of one triumphing over the other. This tiny device has... Sorry for the ads. This is one of these blood sugar control things. I've seen a lot of them at the moment. What are they trying to tell me? Am I diabetic? Okay, so we've talked about enmeshment. We understand why it's deeply unhealthy. But what does enmeshment and individuation have to do with autism? As an autistic person who grew up in an enmeshed family, I can tell you that my autism definitely had an impact on how the enmeshment affected me. It's very common for autistic folks to have a hard time lying and to have a hard time expecting others to lie and it can lead to a sort of naivete. Now, to be fair, this is not the case for every autistic person, but it definitely was the case for me. I genuinely believed every word out of everyone's mouth because why would they lie? This made me very gullible and easy to play pranks on on the lighter spectrum of things. But this is one of the hardest things, being a direct communicator in a world where indirect communication is commonplace. Man, it's so hard. I pretty much like with anybody that I go across who is like direct and they always like apologize for being too direct. I'm like, please continue to be direct with me. It's so much easier mixing so like a lot of people who are used to that indirect way of communicating like that emotional expression over emotional explanation, they can find people who are direct to very intense and even though you're basically saying the same things but just in a different way, you're just being a lot more truthful and stuff. Definitely like problem friendships, you have that thing of make crime, people take advantage of you because you think that they are your friend. Romantic relationships, the whole codependency aspect of things, if someone's telling you something and it goes in directly against how they're acting and what they did, even if they tell you it's very hard for me to say actually no. This is not what happens. It's probably one of the main ways that I was bullied when I was younger. People saying something to me doing the complete opposite, lying. I did go through a long stage of not being able to tell even white lies to people. I just didn't want to tell people white lies because I felt that it was going behind their back. I wanted to be a truthful person. I have learned in adulthood. I did go through a stage where I started to try and do that but it just didn't feel right to me. I wanted to incorporate my more artistic style of communication into my life and try and expect it a lot more from the people around me to meet halfway. Most people, they only want to meet you 5% of the way because they don't understand how you work but if you find the right people, they'll meet you halfway with things. That's with communication too. Yes, they're still getting in trouble for telling the truth. It doesn't make sense. A lot of the time people don't like it because the truth is not always good. Sometimes it is really good. That's one of the beauties. It's not something that everybody enjoys because if you're truthful, sometimes they'll definitely believe what you say but if you say something negative, it's bad. They don't like it. If you say something positive and they actually get that you are truthful and that you are honest about things, then they can really enjoy that but it's not for everybody from experience, especially in romantic relationships. Part of my emotional heartburst can be brought on by feeling rejected and made to look irresponsible. Yeah, mischaracterization is a big issue for me. It's probably one of the only things that I find difficult about online stuff.  I don't like being misrepresented but rejection is a common place for a lot of autistic people. It makes sense that we struggle with it in adult life just from past experiences. The heavier end of things, it made it so I couldn't always tell the difference between someone expressing an opinion and someone telling me a fact. This made it almost impossible for me to individuate as a person. I assumed the identity of the people around me because I assumed that they were telling me facts when really they were just expressing opinions and being their own unique individual selves but I thought they were telling me. That is a really good point. I've not thought about that before. It makes total sense to me.  I told my dad that he's a very firm atheist. He was very upset. That was my experience of hearing an opinion and believe. If someone says it in a very convincing way and they're obviously being truthful, it comes across as a fact to me sometimes. I always tell the truth and some people who are used to lying and being lied to believe I'm lying no matter how much I say I'm not. You don't want to be around people like that as much as you can. You can never win. Me universal truths. And when I found myself disagreeing with those universal truths, I felt like something must be wrong with me and I learned to gray rock. I learned to hide in whatever manner I could. Now I understand that this is autistic masking and I hid my autism but I also hid every facet of myself. Truth was something that others spoke. It was something other people had control of and I simply had to scramble to find out what the truth was. I couldn't create my own. If this is sounding really familiar to you, then I get it and welcome to the club and I want to help. Here's what I've done to learn to individuate as an autistic adult. First and foremost I've learned to pay attention when I gray rock or when I mask because it used to just happen so automatically I didn't even really notice I was doing it. Now I might still mask or do the whole gray rock thing if I feel like it keeps me safest but I pay attention to it and afterwards I sort of assert to myself what I truly believe and I come up with that truth on my own as my own individual. Yeah and you would do that after because, you know, Alexivania, it makes sense, you know. I don't think it's something that we can always say no gray rocking. It's sometimes you just don't know how you're feeling and it's better to not scramble to find words that don't accurately describe what you're feeling. It can be frustrating for some people for them to like express something to you and you just not like know how you feel about what they said or like have an opinion about it because you haven't thought about it properly but it's pretty much the only way that I can do it to be honest especially if it's a very like emotionally volatile situation. You know, time is important because, you know, I want to be able to understand exactly how I feel about something. So maybe remember something I'm not aware of when people are winding me up and making fun of me. I definitely am. I'm aware now, like I have a keen sense for it but when I was younger I definitely did not. Stacy says once I was told that I won't be mad at, if I'm open and honest with the individual then it's like okay but they still sound like they were mad or upset anyways. Yeah, that's a tough thing as well. And I think that's not necessarily just a neurotypical thing. You know, we like to promise that we won't be, act or feel a certain way to what someone's telling us but it's not always the case but you know, whenever I've been in situations where I'm like, you know, just be open and vulnerable with me and stuff and you know, I won't be overly like negatively responsive. I might be upset by something but you know, just being honest about like that I think is important because I tend to lose a lot of trust in people when they say stuff like that and they're like just be open, just be truthful, just be honest with me and then they get upset with you even even though they said that they wouldn't. It's okay not to agree with me, just don't discriminate me. Yeah, I guess so. I don't really know what you mean by that.  I've had to learn that my situation has changed. I am not in the same situation where I had to gray rock all the time, where I had to mask all the time. I am in a situation where I have some agency over what happens to me and that takes some massive brain rewiring to really emotionally grasp that concept but that's what I'm working on now because if I can have agency over my own life then I can tell my own story and be my own person and embrace who I am and everybody else be damned. Finally I am embracing neurodivergent communities. Being around other people who are like me who are autistic or neurodivergent in some other way it helps me feel a healthy sense of interdependence rather than co-dependence and enmeshment. What do you think about all this? Has your neurodivergence impacted your ability to be your own person? Let me know in the comments and as always thank you so much for watching. I think it's a bit confusing for me in this video in certain points because like there are a lot of different words for things and like specifically in this video I feel like some of the words I do I do actually understand the concepts but I just didn't understand like the actual like the variation in the words because masking makes sense you know. I suppose it is kind of an issue of identity in a lot of cases. I have never really had an enmeshment before. I have come across some people who are like a really highly enmeshed with like the support helper or like the parents or


As you see the Nets outscoring the Timberwolves, 40 to 27 in that second quarter and roots to a 127-97 victory. Nicholas Claxton getting his first career start, Nets again, 16-1 run to start that second quarter. And the Nets leading wire to wire, the largest lead by 45 points. The Nets improved to 37-17 as you see the top of the Eastern Conference standings with sets of stage. For what should be a very fun and competitive game tomorrow night in Philadelphia. Adding to the storyline with Ryan Rucco, the quote that he read from Ben Simmons earlier, about there only being one ball in Brooklyn and that you need to be able to play some defense. I think we're going to have some fun tomorrow night. Michael Grady, Sarah Cousteau, Nets get it done and Couste is coming off of that game against the Lakers with a Nets look somewhat lethargic. Especially after Kyrie Irving got ejected, they brought the energy from the jump in this one. Rotations and in the lineup. And so I think, you know, for Steve Nash, for this coaching staff, it's a really nice place to build from, especially given the amount of players that have been out. That's, and again, we can't say that enough.  I know Andrew Shamet, I would have asked him, would have brought up memories of his Wichita State point guard days. He would have told you, he's used to it. Absolutely. But the fact that they were able to get it done again, you know, without a point guard in this particular situation, but shorthanded with so many different guys out and have that type of performance with the ball movement that we saw really says a lot. And here's the deal to put it into context. We know that Minnesota is one of the bottom five defenses, but the fact that there is an understanding with the offense, how they wanted to flow, the balance and spacing on the floor, initiation from multiple players. And it wasn't just about the point guard role, but we saw different players able to initiate offense, how they were getting some of those open looks. And so much of it started with how they played on the defensive and they were taking care of the basketball. They were getting stops and allowed them to push and get going in the fast break. And I think just so much of that comes from the rhythm and the feel of these guys, just knowing how to play and because they have a high basketball IQ, they've quickly gelled together and fit together in a way that they can find one another on the floor.


cultures in India, North India and Afghanistan not very different and I think this relationship going from ancient times because Afghanistan, these are neighbour countries. The dream is that all of Afghanistan can play in IPL with our players. Our home ground is also in India, so most of our time is spent in India. We in fact, particularly care to ensure that our ground in Noida gets international certification. I would like to thank BCCI, India Government and also Greater Noida Authority for allowing us to use their facility. Contributing to the very foundation for two countries relations which has been laid down by the people of the two countries.


February 26th, 4.50pm. I almost said February. If you've seen this clip, you've seen the prior clips that we spent the day and we went to the gym this morning. I aerated my knee a little bit despite the quarter zone shot, but it's all good. And then I spent a few hours up in the art room creating the new studio palette for my Daniel Smith watercolor paints collection. I've been collecting for a really long time. I'm not showing you the clip to brag. I frequently from the beginning days would go in and buy one or two tubes at a time. Artist quality watercolors are expensive and Daniel Smith is no exception to that, so I have been collecting my colors for a really long time. That being said, it's a nice decent collection and I wanted to have all the colors in one palette when I'm here working at home. And yes, I'm in the closet. I don't know. It's a quiet place right now. So I have a new studio palette that you've seen. The base for the palette is a plastic palette that was gifted to me by my friend, Peg Robinson. It didn't work out for her for what she wanted, but she said the inserts in it come out so it might work for what you want. And she's not wrong. I took the inserts out and I used some adhesive tack to put half pans in. I can get well over 100 half pans in, which is great because my Daniel Smith collection is not a small one. And even though that being said, there's room to grow in the palette. God forbid I decided I need any more colors because I don't really think I do. Anyway, you never know. I keep saying that. I just bought indigo and burnt sienna, I think yesterday. Yeah, anyway. So I'm gonna let that chill out. I'm doing some chores today.  So that's on the agenda tomorrow and the next couple of days editing is a party to get all of February done. So we'll see how far I get. All right, that's it for the moment. I'll be back. It's 9 21 a.m. or so on Monday morning, the 27th, I think it's the 27th. I got the vlog for last week edited and saving and rendering right now. Then I have to do the Chronic Pain vlog for that group that goes right over into that Facebook group and then I have all the February tutorials to film, to film, to edit. Hopefully the filming went well. You have to review the footage and see if I need to re-film anything. I do think that one of them is gonna end up having a part two because I'm already inspired to do something else with what I did in that tutorial. So and it has to do with my creative year and by the way those videos may start being here on YouTube but unlisted and you might only be able to get them through the my creative year Facebook group. So I'm considering that right now. So if you're not a member of the group you might want to join, just saying. There's plenty of stuff for you all that's gonna be here on YouTube. I'm not abandoning you so don't go there. I have more content. Things I've been working off sort of off-camera that I'm thinking I want to film some of that. So you know stuff that'll be coming up anyway. I need to take a shower now and I need to make my bed and I need to get dressed because I need to go take some Etsy orders to the mailbox and I've got to finish finish I've got so much video to edit. So anyway I'm gonna get all that done and I'll be back. Hey guys I'm editing video for February. I'm gonna be doing that all day today and probably most of tomorrow anyway as I'm editing Etsy orders are coming in that I need to fill and I have a new patron over in Patreon and I have a new supporter here on YouTube in the YouTube membership. So Christine Stahl here on YouTube thank you so much for your support and over in Patreon Lisa Swank. Thank you so much for your support. I appreciate both of you very very much and I will strive to bring you what I've promised as far as content is concerned. For you guys it's Tuesday January I don't know. I don't know I think it's after lunch too already. January 28th 109 p.m. I spent the morning getting all of the 11 videos I edited yesterday set to upload to YouTube most of them are done already it's still working though yeah there's still a couple that are working. Getting all the descriptions set getting all the links I promised if I missed anything y'all let me know. I filmed a couple more videos today including here's a sneak peek for something coming up in my creative year.  Anyway it's up there drying and I cleaned out my tray with all my paperclip stuff. I now have a large size priority mailbox. Large size no sorry medium size. You see that box there full of random fabric scraps paper bits, painting papers, there's some markers and crayons in there. I just keep throwing stuff in there. There's little mini pads of paper in there there's all kinds of stuff so anyway at some point when the box is full I'm gonna seal it up and send it to somebody. Don't know who yet so if you're interested let me know. It's all kinds of random bits that most people would be garbage of a task. Mixed media artists are interesting. Anyway what else? That's it for the moment I really really need to go eat some lunch and then I want to work on Mike Deacon's Mission Inspiration for January which I still haven't done yet and I want to do some watercoloring. I might try to combine the two we'll see and I also have a YouTube video from a kid that I was watching. I'll try to link his channel below or the video below if I can. Fascinating video and I want to try that so yeah I want to work on that too and work on my Gene Haynes book so mostly though I'm just getting ready for a day of physical therapy and errands and picking my dad up at the airport tomorrow so trying to get stuff done today in case I feel like crap tomorrow. Alright that's it for the moment I'll be back. Hey guys so it's what time is it 3.44? I got all of the videos loaded to YouTube that I did yesterday and two more are loading right now that I made this morning so jazzed with the little painting that I did for my creative year. It turned out so well it's expressive it's abstracted it's I really I really like it so yeah anyway to see what it looks like you're gonna have to go over there. You need to be a member of my creative year. Good morning people it is Wednesday morning January 29th I think. It's 7 11 a.m. it is dark outside I'm gonna do what I can to lighten up the video here in the video editor so hopefully you don't see that but if the lighting is weird just so you know it's dark outside. Anyway I am upright and early because I am headed to my first physical therapy appointment for my knee. I'm not looking forward to chill for a bit check on social media and all that stuff maybe get some art done and then I've got to be back out of the house and go pick my dad up at the airport at just before two o'clock his flight supposed to get in just before two so it's gonna be a busy busy day I have to go to the grocery store I don't necessarily have to do it today I could do it tomorrow but in the next 24 hours or so I need to go to the grocery store so that's on my agenda to get past physical therapy first. In one. I started off very early this morning with no shower and barely any coffee and then went to physical therapy I was clean at all people but you know I didn't have much time to take a shower before I went and I was gonna get sweaty anyway then I came home a shower chatted with friends for maybe an hour ended up doing some more art supply purging and I've got some stuff in the back of the car I think I'm gonna drop some of it by the family center that we went to before and Tiger they have an art room there in a classroom then a neighbor texted me she was having problems with her new Apple iPhone. Do you know what technology? Don't you? So I went over and helped her for a bit. The kids lost out on another bit on another house today unfortunately it's house number five so I'm still looking now I'm over at Portland International Airport headed to the self-aware area because I need to pick my dad up at the airport on a Wednesday which is not a great day to have to be at the airport because it's the PDX hub day and everybody for work is flying in and or out and the airport is crazy busy like every single Wednesday plus it's raining out because you know I live in the land of much water many bridges and no direct route to anywhere and right now we're experiencing much water so that's a thing. Can't wait to go home and just be able to put my feet on the couch. It'll be nice. I'll be back. It's on the internet for people to hear. My career depends on it. Although the colors of the painting are very complimentary to the decor you have up there already. I told you I could get up there for you. I don't see her. I mean dad asks me about that I'm I'm blaming you. I'm not taking the fall for that. Did you paint them when they were all side-by-side like this? Yes. Okay I was like wow that tree lines up so nicely. Let's get the other one out before I dig up every single pole in the house. Another real question is do you think dad or Polly is are gonna notice that you did this? Because they're boys and boys aren't generally very observant. I have a vlog on YouTube. You all tell me if we're wrong but men are generally not super observant human beings. Some aren't. Ours aren't. Now that I've said that they'll probably both notice the second they come home. We'll keep you posted. Yeah. If anybody's wondering why I have this pole, I have a really big house and it's the only way to reach the ceiling frame to dust that shit over there. At least if you were digging that ceiling dad's not gonna notice that. He'd never see something that was dinged up that far. Oh did she want to go outside? Okay we'll be back. I mean it's very noticeable. It is very or not? No it is. Very noticeable. I mean the guys will notice it that's for sure. I mean they definitely need to be centered. That's right they need to go that way. Yeah, like a lot. Yeah. I'm trying to read this instead of letting her climb on the shelf because I'm afraid of heights and I'm a paranoid mom. Ask her someday about how I never let her climb a tree. It's a touchy subject. I was deprived as a child. Again I would have to climb there.  I don't know we had more photographs up at the old house. Keep going. Keep going. I mean on the bright side they need to just come over a little bit more. Keep going. That might be okay. What on the clean dog bed? Yeah I know Letty just cleaned. Nobody in YouTube land tell Letty. Our lady who helps us keep this giant house clean that I just messed up her clean. Letty laid on the dog bed. Letty had a freshly vacuumed dog bed. I know and we love her Letty. She's great. She might fire me as a client and she finds out I just messed up her clean. Oh mom. I think maybe we should leave them. I mean I think they could be pushed over like a hair or more but I think this is pretty good. The center one's just about a center with the TV. So why don't you come down and take a look. Distance blank space between this wall and that wall. Yeah I think they're just about all over that freshly vacuumed dog bed. Poor Lily. So much abuse. I'm just kidding. Just kidding. Oh I think that's good. Yeah. If you don't look at the doorway and you look at the little knee wall. The railing. I think that's good. I mean if anything maybe you can come over for this way. I'm not doing that. I'm not pushing them back to them. It's not happening. I have to get up there. I'm afraid of heights. FYI. Yeah I like that. Cool. Looks good. Bring some color to that empty crazy weird spot. Alright. Do we need to move the little ball over? Yeah. The little metal things? Yeah. They look kind of squashed. I need the grapper thing. Well let's try the stick. I got the stick in my hand. Let's see where the dog is at. I left her outside. What is she doing? She's walking around. There we go. You all better watching because I'm running out of places today. Becca you need to find a house. I need extra gallery space. Nope. Dang it.  I already have one of your paintings. I don't need more. Okay. Well go visit etsy.com. Slip forward slash Cheetah errands. Hashtag shameless promo. The spiky thing over just a little bit. Over towards me is the paintings. The paintings. This one? Yeah. The spike. There we go. Is that good? Should these two be reversed? No we're good. Okay. Here we go. Now let's see if anybody notices when they get home. Lily did you notice? Look at that wagging tail. Look at that tail. Lily! People love Lily. Well there we go. Lily sit. Can you do a trick for everyone? That's not a trick. Sit. Down. Not lay down. Okay. Roll over. Come on. Roll over. Dog. Roll over. Come on. Roll over. There we go. Good job Lily. Good job. Hey guys. So what do you think of those paintings and the video my daughter shot for me? I think they look pretty good there. I did get another one. Hung up. Let's go down the stairs a few steps. Hung up. It's not hung up. It's leaning. Right there. See the corner of it? There we are. Some more of it. I'll go down a few more steps so the light fixture is not in the way. So it's right there on that ledge. I think it looks pretty good there. There. So I think that looks pretty good. Yes, my house is starting to look like an art gallery. But you know, I am a painter so you know. Anyway, I spent the morning in between people doing stuff around the house for me. The gardener was here. The cleaning lady was here. Not capable physically of keeping this whole big huge house clean by myself. And I have so many allergies gardening. So the question not to mention I hate gardening. So we have people here doing that for us periodically. And when they are, I don't really get a whole bunch of stuff done generally, but I did get some new product packaged in the Etsy store this morning. I've been switching over the stencils from being wrapped in plastic. I think I have one here. I'm trying to eliminate as much plastic out of my life in my Etsy store as is humanly possible. Plastic is not good for the environment. So anyway, I was wrapping the stencils in glycine bags, but the Amazon seller I used to get them from no longer has that particular size. So I went to Paper Mart and they have this white paper bag, which is probably better because it's not wax coated. And I encourage everyone who buys anything from my store to reuse even the plastic. It's something in plastic or the glossy card stock or something. I'm not ordering custom product inserts anymore either. I'm putting in a scrap of right now scrapbooking paper because I have a ton of it and let's use it somehow. So we're using it in the Etsy shop and then you get one of my business cards inside. And it's sealed with washi tape, which I'm also using up.  So that works. We also got some more stencil waste in the store. The bags are a little bit bigger now. So that's good. Stencil waste is the, for those that don't know is the bits that they cut out of the plastic to create the stencil, all those little shaped bits. So my manufacturer saves them for me.  I will link her store Etsy store in the description below. And I did get a journal page done for Mike Deacon's Mission Inspiration. I don't need to give you all any nausea or anything about turning so fast. Sorry about that. So his prompts this month for Mission Inspiration were colors of clay, amber and sunset. Words were safari, jungle, explore, journey and wildlife. And the quote was animals of the world. So I took all that I decided to do sort of a mixed media thing. Technically it's mixed media. I was getting tired. Technically it's mixed media because it's pen, pencil, ink and watercolor. And I did a lion. Oops, things are falling out. There we go. So that was good. I'm going to do another watercolor here right now. Now that we've got the painting situation straightened up, the house is clean, laundry is done. I'm going to do some more painting. All right, I have physical therapy in the morning and then I need to run errands. I'll probably bring you with me, but we'll see. All right, I'll be back. The grocery store and all that jazz.  Stop watching videos about the coronavirus because that's not helping my anxiety at all. Did some new exercises. They pushed around on it. Had me do some new things to strengthen, you know, the other parts of the knee that are not damaged. And you know, it's a good thing but it hurts. So anyway, yeah, that's a thing. So I'm all done with that.  I would like to like head right upstairs and get some artwork done, but I think I'm going to just stay off of it for a bit. And yeah, that's a thing. Maybe put some of the deep blue rub on it. So anyway, let's go see if we can get the grocery shopping done in a timely manner, shall we? Good afternoon. It is Saturday, February 1st, and it's about 2 30 bent the morning. Well, Bob and Rebecca went to the gym. I stayed home because my knee was a little sore after physical therapy yesterday, but I got some stuff done upstairs. If you're watching this, you've seen a little short clip of that anyway. Then we went to the grocery store and we went to the thrift store. I've got another arm load of kids books. We're going to walk them over to the little book house, try to get a few steps in. My knee is still sore, but it's maybe a two or three out of 10. It's not too bad. I can live with it. And when we get back, I'll put ice on it. So it'll be good. All right.  He calls it my old lady perfume. So anyway. All right. That's it for the moment. I'll be back. I do want to say two things. One funny thing that happened this week is there's no, Rebecca, our daughter cannot deny anymore that she looks like me. Her face opened my cell phone. Anybody who has a phone that has facial recognition knows exactly what I mean. So yeah, that was fun. And then we got home from the grocery store and Bob said, let's go walking tonight. I said, let's go walking now while it's still light out. Because last night we went in the dark and I stepped in dog poop. So let's not have a repeat of that, shall we? We did our good deed. We'd love to encourage children and the young people to read. And it looks like I've inflicted my, I don't know, fixation about that on our daughter. Because she and I both purchased some books at the thrift store and I just dropped them all off in the book house. So we didn't quite fill it up. It has a lot of empty spaces right now, but that's okay. And I should let y'all know I don't live in the community where the book house is. We're down the road, different community. I like to contribute. It doesn't matter to me. So anyway, we're going to limp home, put some ice on my knee. Maybe make a cup of tea and relax. It's been an interesting week, but you know, any, any day or week on the right side of the dirt is a good day or week, right? All right. Don't forget to like share and subscribe. I'll leave any relevant links in the description below. If you have questions, comments or concerns, please let, please let me know down below. And my happy mail address and all that stuff is down there. So anyway, check it out. The most important thing of course is go out and have a great day. Have a great week. Do something nice for yourself because you deserve it. And we'll see you later.


Okay, very good morning to everyone. It's the 3rd of August. Hope you all had a fantastic weekend a couple of things first for one On Friday, we've got the release of US non-farm payrolls and myself and the team will be covering that live an exclusive webinar Now normally we get nearly a thousand registrations for these events and they are capped at only 500 places Beauty of zoom of course that we can deliver this across the world So if you want to join us live, there's a link in the description to this video If you click on that you can register Alternatively, you can just go on my Twitter handle, which you can see here below my my face If you go to my pinned tweet, you'll see my macro menu, which is my kind of fundamental Review for the key themes. I'm looking at for the week ahead at the top there You can see a registration button there in red click on that and I'll take you through and you can submit your details So hopefully I'll see you in more detail and interaction and engagement on Friday for non-farm payrolls But let's get straight into it and let's talk about the week ahead. What have we got on the agenda and Yeah, the open fairly quiet a couple things definitely to talk about in this briefing for sure from Covid to central bank decisions to the outlook for the dollar For what's happening on Capitol Hill and US stimulus all the way to tick tock And earnings so there's lots to cover but first of all just having a look at the overall sentiments morning Equity index futures not too much going on here. The S&P's flat the NASDAQ backs upper touch Elsewhere gold in the futures and the spot very close around that $2,000 level So definitely that remains on the on the watch list for sure this week Can we really bust that level and break out to the upside? I'm sure we will find out either way in the coming sessions And then gonna have a look at the dollar as well and a little bit more detail Talked to Sam yesterday and we're talking about the dollar and he's got a pretty definitive outlook of what he thinks Just given how depressed the greenback has been hitting a two-year low That he thinks then given some of the technical ejections Which I'll walk you through on some of the charts that we could be in for a week of some renewed dollar strength Giving how depressed the price has been Otherwise in the crude market, we're gonna talk a little bit about OPEC Of course their their planned deal now has come into effect as of the 1st of August So that means now that the supply cuts are lesser onerous than that They were in the prior weeks gone by and then in the US 10 year pretty flat You have got a mammoth amount of supply to be announced by the US Treasury in order to kind of Supplement then this huge stimulus that they're offering to markets And that's going to be a noticeable thing for fixed income traders this week as well But let's get straight into it. I'm going to have a look at a couple of these FX charts I've just gone through and marked a couple up. I'm just going to remove my If I can my camera So there with me there you go So having a look at the euro this morning and so in the major pairs We are lower and the dollar is up about a quarter of a percent so sound definitely his call right to kick off the week and One of the main basis for his reasoning here has been going to cycle you through Euro Aussie and the pound starting off with the The euro obviously the euro has seen a phenomenal couple of Weeks this is looking at the breakout that we've had in the last two and a bit weeks Where we broke that trend line from the summer of 2018 Kind of coinciding with the ECB over delivery the European Coordinated effort with the recovery fund and we've seen the dollar weakness of course and so we broke out We've gone through 116 117 and 118 However, we have seen a bit of a pullback after getting rejected around those highs that was seen in around the late September time of 2018 So that's looking over the course of the last two years definitely a clear horizontal level of Resistance just coming into focus, but if we start to zoom out and look at the bigger picture This is now looking at the last You know kind of 11 years or so going back all the way to 2008 where we saw a double top going back here to April 2008 and July of 2008 and then retest in 2014 and to where we are Right at the moment. So there's that horizontal line of the 2018 high Which comes in around just short of the 119 handle But what Sam was looking at is the markets inability to close above what initially was a price that did momentarily move not only above that 2018 high but also Over this long-standing trend line and it failed to break it And so the rejection of that level from a long-term perspective definitely is very significant for sure elsewhere then looking at the Aussie it was another one. We wanted to have a look out on a longer time frame This was looking at a trend line as well going back to 2014 a retest at the beginning of 2018 and then last week's price activity and again, we Came up close proximity in Aussie dollar to the highs that were seen back at the very beginning of 2019 But that area also coinciding with that long-standing trend line getting hit to the tick pretty much before then turning back lower Certainly few things to have a look out for this week I'll discuss the RBA in a moment But certainly again a rejection of a key level which will be meaningful for the dollar and then finally looking at cable You know cables being on a tear of late having broken out above its 200 DMA and those previous highs that we saw in the middle of June and Having surmounted the 130 hand or last week we run up to around 132 Which was a clear level of resistance really year-to-date both in kind of late jam and also pre the pandemic set off that we had in March and we've just backed off since that price so You know definitely Some key rejections in the FX space and just given the Consistency of the dollar weakness a little bit of a bounce here following these technical moves I don't think could be too unsurprising And then just shifting over quickly to the precious metals space This is how a quick look at gold but before I look at gold I just wanted to have a look at silver because similarly a key technical rejection And around those support levels remember these were these upside levels that we had Kind of marked ahead of time just given how violently The silver rally had been in the previous two weeks or so and that was when we were watching it if you remember Breaking through 21, but we quickly went through 23 25 and then again pretty much to the tick to hit the 26th handle Symbolically but also that was that key area of support going back to you know beginning of 2011 And also the end of that year and the summer of 2012 really important level for silver And that also getting rejected court creating a decent dollar and a half pullback in the price As far as the yellow metal is concerned gold continues to remains elevated But we were kind of talking about this at the end of last week about how we've had these progressively more shallow pullbacks in gold which would be indicative then to a Breakout in either direction, but obviously meaningful to the upside is this 2000 level which you can see Has relatively held so far, but the pressure is building it would seem a Lot of people obviously still talking about gold very much so at the moment But then COVID globally is still getting worse Lots of uncertainties as well about the impact that that will have on the shape of the recovery going forward So definitely gold I would say only a matter of time even if we did see a bit of a breakdown like what we had in Towards around Thursday of last week when it we got rejected off that 2000 even if we did I would still see some pretty strong areas of support then for the market just to come back higher again So really here Would be a key area around 1975 and then lower down Just capturing some of this previous support levels that were seen back on the 29th and also the 30th Around 1950 type mark then to just follow the move back higher So whether the break comes here more near term or later I definitely think that that 2000 is going to go at some point and when it does obviously it could be quite a violent move Just giving some of the pent up demand for gold at the moment and the technical symbolic nature of a breach of those levels All right. Well, look plenty of headlines for me to talk over. So let's get straight to those and Start off with COVID situation Here we go. So this is looking at new confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the US UK, Australia, France and Spain. So these are a number of countries at the moment. They're kind of on my watch list If anything in the US US cases rose by just shy 60,000 at the weekend marking a 1.3 percent day-on-day increase that is in fact Less than the 1.6 percent average for the previous seven days according to Bloomberg and the John Hopkins University Viruses have also slowed in Japan and Germany But the the other areas that are capturing a lot of the headline news story at the moment is in mainland Europe Of course, it's been Spain, but also France have seen their numbers being picking up and then in Australia in a different continent They have come out and Australia's victorious state has tightened restrictions and declared a state of disaster After this outbreak showed no signs of abating three weeks after capital Melbourne was put under lockdown And in fact in Melbourne in the metropolitan area, they have now enforced a curfew limiting movement between 8 p.m And 5 a.m. And that that new restriction will be enforced for the period of the next six weeks So again that level as well in the Aussie that we were just looking at not only a technical level trend line getting rejected But also as well the deterioration that we're likely to see then on the economic Severity of the pandemic hit though Australia is going to go through you have some housing prices overnight Which deeply sharply the country's moved into deflation for the first time in 22 years. We saw last week And so if anything you're looking for a weaker Aussie dynamic at this point So any dollar recovery and the rejection that level Could be decent for for Aussie shorts The other country is the UK of course and this comes after There's been a couple of headlines that have come out over the weekend. The UK is looking apparently at all options at this point in time This has come after What Boris Johnson gave a speech at the end of last week We heard from the health secretary Matt Hancock about them basically putting the handbrake On the reopening of the final remnants of what was the COVID-19 lockdown instigated back in kind of late March early April and The type of things that they're looking at here It's a sunday telegraph article and a sunday times piece the telegraph talking about possible measures including the lockdown of the capital in itself if infection rates spike and quarantining Tightening quarantining rules for those flying into the UK. The Times wrote that there could be travel curbs in and out of the m25 Highway circling greater london and a ban on overnight stays so certainly The UK government kind of taking heed I guess from what is developing at the moment In mainland Europe, particularly with the attention in Spain last week And so they're kind of the three areas Generally that I'm looking at the UK ourselves Given the way that the numbers are panning out at the moment You would anticipate that numbers will move higher this week and in spain france and then elsewhere Australia is worth keeping an eye on as well Interesting thing that I saw actually the study was some FT data in regard to the UK A lot of people obviously had been talking about Leicester, which had it was one of the first Larger populous areas to have a more localized lockdown the government's still saying that that is the key way to kind of manage then The economies to still function not having a nationwide lockdown, but very important then that we start to Control what there's a difference between What they're deeming to be isolated kind of outbreaks or more community spreading Leicester would be like with Blackburn Bradford and Oldham Something more akin to community spreading, which is more of a progressive slow consistent steady incline of numbers With a more flatter shape whereas when you get some of the other areas Which we've had before which are isolated outbreaks and say an abattoir In the northwest where where cases have spiked but then given the fact that it gets locked down and controlled It doesn't spread to the rest of the community and comes immediately back down. It's the former. There's a real issue So you can expect then As what we've seen in the northwest of England Lots of these kind of more local authority lockdowns to take place going forward Um Moving on then other things I want to talk about in the equity market I haven't really talked stocks yet, but um jp Morgan came out with a note this morning See the risk of modest stock drop, but don't go defensive They're talking about the next couple of weeks Um, if economic data misses expectations, there could be a modest equity market correction Um, yeah, I mean that definitely could well be the case But I guess the underlying sentiment here is and I agree with is that this market is not going to go down Let's say 10 plus um at this point in time just given Um, what's in play both from a monetary policy and a fiscal perspective It's just hard to see this equity market sustaining A consistent move lower. So here again the key areas we'd be looking at. I'm just looking at the nasdaq Um chart here for the moment And you can see what a great level that we were respected on that trend bottom end of that trend line Which was that Uh resistance level that we had when we were initially pushing up at those all-time highs and then as that back at 10 292 seems a distant memory now because 11 000 obviously just above there is the The new all-time high and we're not far off there at the moment Again any pull back here. This is the 21 dma we have here in the blue line Then perhaps then 10 7 66 and a half It could be an interesting floor for price. You can see a couple times that that's been respected And and definitely worth watching this week about how we reacted around that 11 000 level once again Just going to quickly bring up the s and p as well The story there hasn't really changed a great deal despite the ebb and flow that we have been seeing of late And With the earning season now getting I'd say less interesting. I mean, let me just broaden this out a little bit renewed us China tensions still remain something to keep an eye on One of the things we've had is us officials have said that tiktok Under its chinese parent poses a national risk because of personal data than it handles Microsoft co said it could continue negotiations to acquire tiktok from bite dance That it aimed to reach a deal by middle of september The whole point here is that banning tiktok Some republicans have said would alienate many of its younger voters ahead of the important u.s Presidential election in november whilst also likely triggering a wave of legal challenges So that's kind of the latest of the u.s china Kind of trade spat playing out for the moment But you can see this area here really that's held so far and it's a really key point around that 3200 31 96 which has held the bottom end of that range of the price movement through much of the period of the month of july So as we start to edge up a little higher here We're just getting very close proximity to retesting up around the high that was seen on the 23rd So quite a key mark there 32 84 and a 3300 hand on the upside Any breach though of that july kind of floor with the next level of key area to keep an eye on is 31 19 being those lows that we had In the early part of july you can see here as well We have that Resistance point in early march and it's been another area of key in november and also december of last year as well so yeah, again Room for a pullback shore and some of these u.s equity markets, but still I would say a good flaw for price that should well mean that You know any significant weakness is to be bought into at this point I know that sounds like a quite frightening prospect giving everything that's going on Covid wise geopolitical wise But it's just the nature of the way markets are set up at the moment um Let me just have a quick look. Hopefully I was just sharing my charts there. Let me just Double check and quickly run you through again. So the nasdaq these were those levels in the nasdaq that I was just looking at here That was those levels at 11 000 And then when it comes to the s&p Uh, this is what I was looking at here if I wasn't sharing it just then So this is that area 31 96 and then that 31 19 is a key area on the downside of any pullbacks And then the upside key area resistance seen just above here The previous move high that we've had in the post pandemic recovery Which would take us back up to these levels that where we were trading right at the beginning of the year All right a few other stories just to wrap things up And i'm going to talk about the central banks just momentarily Um, we do have the bank of england happening this week I wouldn't actually be expecting a great deal here If you remember they boosted their asset purchase facility by 100 billion pounds at the last meeting So i'm expecting unanimous in terms of no policy decisions to be taken this time round They do have the reason their monetary policy report. So this is one of those Alternate meetings when they would have the full press conference as well They'd be talking about their projections, but it's unlikely they're going to call them Economic really projections at this point in time. It's more likely they'll refer to them as simply scenarios given how uncertain the covid situation is And its implication for the uk economy Couple of interesting bank comments i saw at the weekend city group said the bank of england could pave the way for negative territory In terms of interest rates by removing the guidance that the lower bound is close to but a little above zero at its decision Whereas hsbc. I thought came out with quite a Good pun They said that the boe could rely on the rhetoric of negative interest rates without actually having to do so the so-called maradona effect And i actually think that they've got a point It's almost one of those things where people talk about it enough It almost becomes self-fulfilling and do you get the actual policy response of taking such action already ahead of time before even doing it Meaning then that you never actually have to pull the trigger on such a move Um, certainly the markets do think that the boe will Go into either an expansion at the end of the year Of the asset purchase facility again and negative rates perhaps in the spring of next year So the interesting thing of course to see what and i'm sure the journalists will be in the q&a asking them about that that particular Policy option the other one is the rba Not expecting anything here either they meet on tuesday, so they have to keep their overnight cash rate in three year yield target unchanged This comes after a number of the things that they've already done so far Realistically are they going to have to do more? Well It's kind of a difficult one that they face now They've come to the lower bound and the governor's kind of ruled out the use of negative rates Which doesn't leave a great deal of options left on the table And at the moment the longer and tightened the victoria lockdown The more harder it's going to hit the rba's forecast And and their local economy so really the covet situation is is quite key at the moment In australia member melbourne the highly populous area in the state of victoria So that is going to have stark implications for them And so again questioning about them. How do they see that playing out? It's going to be what most people will be looking at but not actual definitive policy Changes are expected on the oil front oils are touched softer this morning Obviously it did bounce I'm just going to have a quick look technically There was a few things i was looking at on friday, which was if i look on a daily I've got it kind of zoomed in a bit more closer here This is looking at the last two months of price activity here And you got the 50 dma with the 10th of july low which was around 38 54 We came right down to that that kind of dual signals there for a bounce After we saw a bit of a breakdown of the Move through the 21 dma which came in what last thursday's session And a bit of a breakout from what had been an area of consolidation The very tight price activity around the 41 to 42 handle prior to that in the beginning of last week And so that's a definite key area there and in the near term you can see Market finding a bit of a flaw around that 20th of july area as well But overall crude perhaps a little soft not only are we tracking this global covid situation One thing we did have overnight was chinese occasion market manufacturing pmi and actually that came at a 52.8 Which was a continued increase on the previous readings the sector's third consecutive months of growth As the biggest jump since january of 2011 So these would all be positives you would think but the problem here Is that the rest of the world is suffering at the moment about this second phase of the corona virus So despite some of those positive signs coming out china the rest of the world is looking kind of fragile on the demand side On the flip side the other thing that you have here Is of course that opec and its allies last month agreed to start tapering their cut bats from 9.6 million Browse per day to 7.7 beginning on the 1st of august Now russia often a laggard in these previous opec plus deals as far as compliance is concerned And was almost fully compliant in main june However reports the weekend suggested that they had slightly increased its oil production in july ahead of the scheduled plan Which is slightly Disconcerting given how crucial that they are And their adherence to this deal in order to help support prices So at the moment you've got a slight relaxation of the stringent seal on the supply side with some demand Apprehension at the moment Which does provide a bit of an interesting situation for crude So for the moment I do feel like perhaps we'll be capped now On the upside by some of those higher areas that we have had of late, which is around That 42 type level So not getting up to the the 200 dma just yet So if i'm just looking at this chart here The kind of red line the dma with the load that we have in the second of march Can't see us getting above there anytime soon and in fact Probably around that previous high we printed around 42 36 would be an area of key resistance for for the week going forward Barring anything unexpected on the supply shock side U.S capital hill what's going on this is still definitely a thing to monitor for sure Um, the latest here that we have Is the white house chief of staff mark meadow said on sunday that the two sides are still far apart despite progress over the weekend Following the expiry of course of these emergency enhanced unemployment benefits The failure to reach a compromise by the end of last week has left more than 25 million people in america in the world's largest economy Grappling with sudden austerity after the expiration of those benefits worth around 600 dollars a week So definitely this needs to be kept an eye on the longer it goes without them striking a deal The more negative than the repercussion for markets in respect to the fact that It's going to have more negative connotations for its economic impacts on the recovery of the united states Um elsewhere earnings it's been a couple this morning HSBC have come out Um, their profits fell short of estimates europe's biggest lender Signaling worsening loan loss weighed down by the global pandemic The lender raised its estimate for 2020 loan losses to 8 billion Or to 8 to 13 billion So they're moving it up to 13 billion their adjusted pre-tax profit was 2.59 billion below the expected 2.94 billion you've also got sock gen losing streak With surprise one and a half billion loss The french bank taking large charges after a review of its global markets Division now from an earnings perspective if i just quickly jump to here from a us Point of view. I think u.s. Has kind of seen peak earnings so to speak Um, actually i haven't i didn't tweet the earnings estimates So let me just bring it up here and you'll see Earnings whispers is the best account to follow uh for tracking these these u.s. earnings But it's a very busy week for earnings in america However, it was kind of the crescendo of earning season was last thursday evening when we had that mega cap earnings um evening Now that's passed most of these Companies are much more small medium-sized market caps. So definitely important for the individual stock But for us as macro index-based futures traders This really isn't going to Shape then the potential or disrupt market direction In the likes of the nasdaq or s and p so earning season definitely takes a bit of a step back But in europe do be aware though. There are a number of Key earnings coming out. I think it's the lights. So bp is coming out this week A number of the big european banks. We've got sap out of germany as well So definitely uk and european earnings still to be kept half an arm pre-market wise Okay Payrolls we do have payrolls of course is friday So just be aware then from an economic data slate this week from the u.s We get the normal string of events ISM manufacturing non manufacturing adp All of these things of course will be important and then payrolls will be live covering that on friday Employers are likely to have added over one and a half million jobs to payrolls last month Or about a third of the prior months pace according to latest bloomberg survey of expectations The jobless rate is projected to drop by 0.6 percentage points to 10.5 Compared with a 2.2 point decline in june and still triple of course the pandemic Pre-pandemic level of three and a half percent. So overall we are expected to have created jobs But remember where's payrolls always that there's a reference period So this only goes up and to capture up into around the week to the 12th of july And actually most of the intended job losses that came due to the second wave situation In the likes of those sunbelt states in america Were captured in the last half of july. So actually how important is Payrolls while it's always creates a degree of Of drama in the intraday Trading environment in terms of volatility. However, actually it might be somewhat artificially More positive than perhaps then what is actual reality given it doesn't capture some of those More job losses that were squeezed into the back end of july So, yeah, it to be to be taken in context. I would say in that perspective for payrolls And then yeah, the week as a whole as I said then key data coming out of the us throughout the week You've also got us factory orders coming out on tuesday A couple of speakers today feds bullard and evans and you've got feds messed up on wednesday And the weekly jobless claims of course will be watched still quite closely just given the this like pickup that we've seen so again goes in contrast to payrolls payroll being backward looking and There were weekly jobless claims coming out week to week as we've seen then where the cutoff reference period is with payrolls Pretty much since that point jobless claims have been coming back up again All the more reason why payrolls fairly dated and backward looking in that respect And therefore might not have such a massive big impact on markets that was beyond the actual moment of its release All right, that is it spoken for quite a while obviously a lot of things to get through don't forget You can get this whole macro menu of everything. I've kind of discussed in more detail It's just on my twitter account Just go to the pin tweet and you can click on it and have a read in your own time That is it. Don't forget to of course to like and subscribe to the channel Of course, we really appreciate all your support As always and good luck for the week ahead. I'll see you same time tomorrow. Thanks very much


All right, the next four I'll just go ahead to read them all because they're all related to each other first one is What are the differences between a prophet and a seer are the roles similar or are they separate an ancient? Israelite religion is a role of seer more akin to tribal shamans such as finding lost items With the aid of divination thinking first Samuel 9 here and how are such terms linked with? Soothsayers and being an eeshaw Elohim man of God has the role of seer disappeared by the second temple period Well, let's take the the man of God One first man of God is a phrase That's used, you know, not not a lot in the Old Testament. I mean, it's it's not rare But it's used to refer to several different things It's used for instance of the angel of the Lord in judges 13 I mean Samson's parents see this individual and hear, you know What he has to say about, you know, the birth of their son and and they refer to him as each, you know Each Elohim each Elohim so there's man of God there, but that's pretty limited I mean, it's it's really when it gets applied to the angel of the Lord It's it's only in this passage and again, you can see why it would be because they can't they can't at least the first time around discern that this is anybody other than a Man and telling them what what God says and so It's it's not surprising we would get this label Secondly, it is used of named individuals that are spokespeople for God again who also received divine revelation Moses for instance Deuteronomy 33 1 Joshua 14 6 David is called, you know, man of God in 2nd Chronicles 8 14 and Nehemiah 12 24 Shamiah who we don't know much about this is gets this label in 1st Kings 12 22 Elijah, all right, Elisha 1st and 2nd Kings respectively So you can have a known figure called man of God and what's interesting is is other than David In that list those those people are also called prophets and that was part of the question Now V is prophet we'll get to that in a moment. So right away. We can see there's some overlap there And thirdly sometimes the phrase is used of an unidentified figure who speaks for God or again Who could receive divine information divine revelation and probably the textbook example of this is 1st Samuel 9 When a man, you know unidentified man of God, you know tells Saul about the donkeys and all this sort of thing So, you know, you know, what is a man of God? Well, it's somebody who you know was perceived as being God's spokesperson and could receive divine revelation divine information and May or may not be also called a now V. Okay a prophet So there there's some overlap their prophets as I've wrote an unseen realm and have commented elsewhere Prophets are people who speak for God now What what these other terms are going to get us into though is not so much the reception of divine Information, but the how is it through a vision? Is it through a dream? Is it an auditory voice? Is it a divine encounter? Is it casting lots or some other form of divination? That's where you get some of this other vocabulary that that sort of focuses attention on the how again How are they getting divine revelation? So the question? You know referenced a few of these terms, but I'll just hit a couple myself here We have kozah in Hebrew, which is from the verb kozah again to see or to have a vision Terms used a few times in tandem with row a which is from Ra to see so a seer Again is another term and now V of course, which is prophet. It's interesting in in first chronicles 2929 row a and Trying to think here, which is let me let me just click out to the verse because sometimes they overlap as synonyms and in other cases They it depends which one it is so first chronicles 2929. I think is worth bringing up It says this now the acts of King David from first to last are written in the chronicles of Samuel the seer That's row a and in the chronicles of Nathan the prophet That's Navi and the chronicles of Gad the seer and that is kozah So we have two seers here, but the terms are different row and kozah But they're obviously they're sort of used in tandem here and one of the seers Okay, Samuel of course is elsewhere called a prophet The terms don't completely overlap because Nathan is distinguished from Gad in other passages You have prophets and seers in some cases that Both of those labels can be attributed to one person and in other passages.  Let me just put it this way It's kind of hard to be categorical and say this one couldn't be that one Just end toto because there is overlap But there are circumstances where perhaps one a person was perceived as one thing and not the other You know, it's just it's hard to tell if there's any real consistency here But there are there are patterns at least in the in the monarchy Narratives again what scholars would refer to as the Deuteronomistic history and you know what again just the the lay reader would You know refer to as the his you know historical texts historical books Samuel Kings Chronicles that sort of thing in those books prophet and seer are Frequently distinguished again Nathan and Gad would be an example. They're mentioned together in a verse But one is a prophet the others seer And I think you know what we have going on here in situations like that as prophets were of course oracles They did get divine information God spoke to them You know where the Lord came to you know such and such and said, you know, hey go over and talk to the king Okay, that that does happen but seers That terminology often has something to do with a with either a vision or a dream You know something like that So it's really kind of the mode of revelation that is being highlighted or distinguished Kind of a subset When we get to this other terminology and we're not saying that prophets couldn't have visions Okay, all we're saying is that while the navy could have a vision the prophet could have a vision when when the term seer Is used that's sort of what that person is known for that's how It to the community that it has become known that this person receives divine information It's through this this modus operandi that sort of thing one of the sub questions I think was about her seers akin to like shamans again the word or people who use Methods of divination again that there there seems to be a relationship there So that seems to be the case another term is Kasam or Kessam these are English translations would would be something like Medium or well, let's just go to let's just go to the one interesting example here because you have soothsay or divine or medium It's the English translations vary so much. So first Samuel 288 This is the medium at Endor passage which I've referenced a lot because of the Elohim reference here with the deceased Samuel But in verse 8 we have so Saul disguised himself and put on other garments and went he and two men with Him and they came to the woman by night and he he said divine for me by a spirit and bring up for me whoever I shall name to you so the The command there to divine is the Hebrew Lema Kasam So right away there there's this association of some methodology to solicit The other side and to get divine information Kasam is typically negative Here we have the medium at Endor and she's going to be a questionable figure a negative figure because of what she's doing You know communicating with spirits and whatnot Deuteronomy 1810 and verse 14 use this again for forbidden practices So Kasam is a term and a notion That would often be used to reference things that are forbidden or pagan methods of domination or whatnot Some scholars though have have speculated and there's no way to really nail this down that Kasam could mean to cut in pieces and That would be a reference to Creating objects of wood Whether they be lots that are cast or even arrows there There's an episode in one of the one of the I think Turner remember which one of the Kings book this is in but it's not coming to me right now Where the prophetic figure asked, you know, the king hey throw down some arrows here as a sign And so that that that sort of thing wooden objects that were used to cast lots in some way or or to Read in an in an oracular sense And we're not really scholars aren't really sure about that whether Kasam actually means that sort of thing or not But it is associated with again doing something to solicit divine information now for those who are interested in this I can't really you know, I can't post the book I mean I I did a paper on the Old Testament response to pagan divination Where I pointed out that some of these these divination methods that are condemned in Deuteronomy 18 are actually approved elsewhere of prophetic figures So the paper addresses why that is and it has to do with who's the source of the information Is it the true God or something else? It has some divine counsel implications in there so that's something I could put with this episode to post But there's actually a book if if those of you who have access to the divine counsel bibliography There's a book a whole book on divination by Anne Jeffers J E F F E R S That I found somewhere But the book is in PDF form and it's part of that that collection So you could you could go look that up? Of course, these aren't the only sources on on divination these these kinds of terms But I like Jeffers book because it's it's she has really succinct discussions on all the terms that are associated in any way with These sorts of individuals seers profits that sort of thing and also the terminology of divination It's really a nice nice work