Good morning, welcome to CMC markets on Friday, the 22nd of October, and this look at the week ahead, getting the 25th of October, I was going to say a quick look at the week ahead, but unfortunately I don't think there's going to be any way that I'm going to be able to do this fairly quickly, because we've got a whole host of things to talk about over the course of the next few days from the macro to the micro to tech earnings and UK bank earnings, so we've got quite a bit to get to, we've got quite a bit to get through, and hopefully we'll be able to do so without sending you, without sending you guys to sleep. So to start off with, let's look at the markets as they are today, and it's been fairly choppy week for European markets, less so for US, we've seen new record highs, video S&P 500 and the Dow, the NASDAQ has lagged a little bit, and I think that's concern over various supply chain disruptions for tech companies and what have you. We've already seen some of the effects of that in the results from, for example, Intel, which seen a little bit of a disappointment over its numbers, SNAP, which could be a leading indicator for Facebook, which is due to report its numbers this coming week, and even Tesla has cited supply chain concerns, even though it posted record revenues and record profits. So, as we look ahead to the upcoming week, the FTSE 100 continues to look fairly well supported, even though we did have a big fall on Monday, and we have managed to rebound off those lows, which is around about 70-180, so I think in terms of the key support on the FTSE 100, anywhere between 70-180 and 70-190 appears to be acting as a fairly decent area of support in the short to medium term. We have seen a little bit of a bearish reversal on Monday, but we've seen an awful lot of these types of candles. We saw a bearish monthly reversal on the S&P 500 last month, and yet we posted yet another record high in the past few days of this month, so you've got to be very, very careful when you look at these sorts of key day reversals, key month reversals or key week reversals, they do require confirmation on a break below a key support level. At the moment, the key support level on the FTSE 100 is between 70-180 and 70-190. If we drop below that, then we could well drop back to the 50-day moving average, so still fairly constructive on equity markets. If we look at the DAX, or the newly formed Germany 40, it's having trouble getting back above the highs of earlier this week or the end of last week, 15,600 and the 50-day moving average, so I'll be keeping a close eye on that key level over the course of the next few days, but nonetheless, I think the fact that US markets are able to push up to new record highs continues to show that there is an appetite to own stocks despite the rising inflation outlook, and that's something I think in particular that we'll be paying much closer attention to over the course of the next couple of weeks in the central bank response to that. We've heard an awful lot of concern the Federal Reserve is behind the curve when it comes to outlining its exit from its very accommodative monetary policy. On the flip side of that, we've got concerns the Bank of England could be on the cusp of a policy mistake because it could potentially raise rates by the end of this year. Well, both can't be right, and I think this is the problem at the moment. On the one hand, the Fed's been criticised for not being fast enough, and the Bank of England has been criticised for arguing the case for rising interest rates, but we have to be realistic here. The economies of the UK, the US are not in the same state they were at the beginning of March 2020, so I think it's entirely justified given what's happening with inflation that central banks start to temper inflation or anchor inflation expectations. Now, that doesn't mean that we're going to stick rates up, the UK rates up to 1% by the end of next year. That's clearly ridiculous, but there needs to be a middle ground, and certainly I think QPIL, the new chief economist of the Bank of England, has pretty much outlined that in his comments in the FT on Friday. We've got the ECB rate meeting coming up on the 28th of October, and we've also got the Bank of Japan. Now, both of those central banks aren't going anywhere with their monetary stimulus measures anytime soon, and certainly the Bank of Japan. I'll be surprised if they do anything significant at all. They've got elections coming up in November, so they'll want to be as politically neutral as possible. The ECB, on the other hand, has seen Jens Weidmann resign or basically announce that he will be leaving at the end of this year, and to be quite honest, it's not hard to see why. I think when you've been banging on for the last 10 years about the risks of loose monetary policy, inflation risks and what have you, and got precisely nowhere, you sort of think to yourself, why am I even doing this? I think he cited personal reasons, and he may well have very, very good reasons for doing that, but ultimately he hasn't really tempered the largest of the ECB, and yet next week, the day after the ECB meeting, we've got flash CPI for October, and if Germans weren't worried about inflation before that, well, I'm sure they're pretty worried now because PPI, at the most recent reading, came in at its highest level since 1974, around about 14%. So looking at the flash CPI numbers for the 29th of October, for October, that is expected to go up to 3.7% for October, with core CPI expected to rise from 1.9% to 2%, and I think that's what the ECB is going to be hiding behind. It's going to be hiding behind the core CPI argument that it is transitory, that the PEP program can be moved in either direction, and certainly ECB President Christine Lagarde has certainly made a nod to that, and I think she will double down on that when she holds her press conference later in the week. So what does this mean for Eurodollar? Well, to my mind, given the fact the ECB is likely to remain on hold for quite some time, it's going to be making it very, very difficult for the Euro currently in a slight uptrend on the 4-hour chart to really sustain much in the way of gains, much beyond 116.80 or even 117.5%, because going all the way back here, we have been in a steady downtrend. Yes, we have started to ratchet a little bit higher, but you've really got to look at Eurodollar and think it has to be very much sell the rally type of market, and certainly on the 4-hour chart, while we are starting to see upward momentum when it comes to Eurodollar, you've got significant area of resistance around about 117.60, and there's likely to continue to be the case going forward, because the Federal Reserve at some point in the future will start to reverse TAC when it comes to its pairing back of its bond buying program. So in terms of next week, we've got an ECB rate meeting due on the 28th, obviously supply chain disruptions, concern that the ECB is underestimating the inflation risk, that manifested itself in the latest minutes, and the disruption to supply chains is putting upward pressure on prices. This week's CPI numbers aren't likely to soothe those concerns. If anything, they're likely to crystallize the divisions on the governing council. We've also got third quarter flash GDP. It's likely to be fairly similar to US third quarter GDP, which is also due out later in the week. Both of these are expected to see a little bit of a slowdown when it comes to the third quarter. The EU GDP is probably likely to flatline more than anything else. A little bit of a drop on the year on year level, but around about 2.1% EU GDP on the quarterly level. As far as US third quarter GDP, consensus is for a slowdown to 2.3% in Q3 from 6.7% in Q2. We already know from the dropping consumer confidence numbers that we've seen over the course of the past few months that US consumers are a lot more cautious than they were. Retail sales growth has been patchy. It's certainly been better than UK retail sales, which has been pretty much rubbish since April. One notable takeaway from the US GDP numbers is the resilience in personal consumption, which was 11.4% in Q1 and 12% in Q2. I'd be paying particular attention to that rate in the early Q3 numbers when they come out later this week. So those are the main numbers out of the US as well as the EU. I'm going to finish up by talking a little bit about the autumn budget on Wednesday. What else can we expect from the autumn budget? Apart from, obviously, in addition to the 1.25% national insurance hike that's coming at the beginning of the next tax year. Certainly, I think the fact that public sector borrowing is around about 20 billion pounds a month. There is concern about the surge in energy prices, food prices at the same time as furlough is ending, and the universal credit uplift is coming to an end. Certainly, in terms of furlough ending, with 1 million vacancies, the party line or the narrative from the Chancellor will be, well, there's plenty of jobs out there. Go and find them. We could see the government offer additional support to help vulnerable households over the winter period. I'm not really sure what form that would take. I don't think they'll go down the route that the French government announced earlier this week of a 1 off 100 euro voucher scheme to 38 million low and middle income families aimed at offsetting the impact of rising energy prices simply because there's no election here in the UK next year and there is in France. So I think the Emmanuel Macron is looking to buy off French voters or the 38 million low and middle income families which are feeling the effects of the big rise in energy prices but he could look at other measures. Government's already coming under pressure to deal with climate change ahead of the COP26 next month. We could hear about how the government intends to go about encouraging households to replace gas boilers with heat pumps as well as helping motorists to transition to electric vehicles both of which I think are pie in the sky because unless you actually improve electricity grid capacity all you're doing is you're just placing additional strain on existing infrastructure and what generates that electricity if the sun isn't shining and the wind isn't blowing. You need a third option whether it be nuclear power or whether it be gas and I think politicians need to be braver at pushing back against the green lobby. I think the government's current strategy seems to be based on the hit and hope variety where they set out a goal without any idea of how to get that. So that could be one takeaway. He could look if you recall his last budget the 130% super deduction for investment in plant and machinery assets. He could extend that to green technology and green innovation. That would certainly be one idea to try and help transition to a much greener economy. The government also needs to look at business rates. They're no longer fit for purpose with traditional retail stores getting clobbered at the expense of the online retailers. So that's another thing that he could look at. So in terms of whether or not we can expect the Bank of England rate hike, I think we'll get one. I think it'll be 0.15% and as long as they manage expectations about future rate hikes, I think it's certainly eminently absorbable. I certainly don't think that the Bank of England is in the cusp of a policy mistake. The guidance mistake if they don't strike the right tone or the right balance but certainly rates back at 0.25% by the end of the year is eminently manageable. And that should be fairly supportive of cable, certainly in terms of where we are now. We've got fairly decent support in and around 13720 and we're finding a little bit of resistance around the 200 day moving average. So we really need to push through that. But overall, if we look at, say, for example, euro sterling, again, it's a similar sort of story, fairly decent support in and around 8420. It's held on 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 days in a row. So if we get a decent break below 8420, there's not really anything there until all the way back here, February 2020 lows, just before lockdown, and around about 83, 8280, there on thereabouts. But certainly the direction of travel for euro sterling for me is for a move lower. We could squeeze back to around about 8470, 8480, but the bias for me remains very much for a stronger pound, especially against the euro. So that's the that's the autumn budget. So it's certainly worth keeping an eye out for. Now we're going to move on to the earnings numbers and we've got a whole host next week. So let's start with Lloyd's banking group. We certainly got a decent set of numbers from Barclays earlier this week. Now for me, the big level on Lloyd's is this 50p level. There was these peaks back here in June, early this year. There was also a decent area of support all the way back here. So it's a fairly key level for me in terms of where we can potentially go to next for Lloyd's banking sector. This year's been a notable outperformer. If I press the year to date button here, we can see that as a general rule, we've seen some fairly decent gains, fairly decent support. If we look through here around about 48p and as far as things go, the bank has done fairly well. The bank's already resumed dividends. We could get an announcement about a special dividend or a potential buyback on the customer side. Mortgages have seen some fairly decent numbers this year. In Q1, Lloyd's said they expected their interest margin to be more than 245 basis points. That was up from 240 at the end of the previous quarter. In Q2, they upgraded that to 250 basis points. They've got the best margins amongst the best margins amongst the UK banks compared to, say, Nat West, which is around about 1.3, 1.4 and HSBC. We're also reporting this coming week 1.21. It is looking a little bit overboard. You could argue that some of the good news or most of the good news is already priced in and the UK economy is likely to go through a sticky patch as we go into Q4. Certainly that is a valid concern. It's very much a valid concern when you look at the retail sales numbers. One thing I've taken from some of these recent numbers from Nat West, Lloyd's and Barclays is that consumer deposits have gone up. Credit card spending has gone down. I'm not saying all consumers, most consumers have probably got quite a bit of additional savings to fall back on. Certainly I think the money is there. The big question is whether or not it actually gets used. In terms of the wider economy, the loanbook structure did see declines in the previous quarter in small business and corporate lending. Certainly I'll be looking to see whether or not businesses have started to become more confident in the future since the relaxation of lockdown. That's going to be as true for Lloyd's as it is for Nat West. I'm going to try and cover these both at the same time. If we look at Nat West Group, they're pretty much exposed to the UK economy in the same way that Lloyd's is. Obviously they're coming from a much lower base. If we look all the way back here, we're still below the highs that we saw back in 2019, but we've managed to recover all of the pandemic losses that we saw from February 2020. The big level on Nat West, let's just draw a quick horizontal line through the top of that. We can see that we've more or less just about broken through it. These numbers are going to be a key test for Nat West. I think one thing in particular I'll be paying particular attention to for Nat West is whether or not they're able to improve their margins. As I say, they haven't really shown any sign of picking up. They are finding the price action is a little bit stodgy in and around this 230-240 area. It'll be interesting from my point of view whether or not we start to see an improvement there and whether it is able to continue to expect to distribute a minimum of £1 billion per annum to shareholders from 2021 to 2023 for a combination of ordinary and special dividends. Just to remind yourselves that their margins back in Q2 were around about 1.61% and last year they were 1.89%. There's room for a significant rebound in Nat West margins and certainly I think the recent move perceptions of higher interest rates have certainly helped the UK banks in that regard. HSBC, slightly different story, obviously much more exposed to Asia, heavily exposed to Asia. The only question that I have with respect to HSBC is how much has the China slowdown impacted its numbers going forward? Because when HSBC reported its first odd numbers back in August, the numbers were fairly impressive but revenues were lower. More importantly, when it reported its numbers in August, shares continued to fall. Now they've rebounded quite significantly since then and I think the asset test for me is how much impact has the China slowdown had on its business and the Evergrand situation? How much exposure does HSBC and Standard Chartered have to that? For me, when I look at HSBC and I look at the major US banks, the key takeaway was underperformance in FIC, fairly decent performance in equities and what have you and fees, banking fees and what have you. But for me, with HSBC's exposure to Asia and China in particular, how much of a hit will have that taken on their equities business? And looking at the way this price action is looking at the moment, it does feel a little bit frothy. So maybe we're building up for a little bit of disappointment in HSBC's numbers, which are due on Monday. Okay, so let's quickly move on to tech because we've got a whole host of other numbers that are due out. We've got Whitbread for a start, they're due out on the 26th, they're due out on the Tuesday. But we've got Facebook, we've got Robinhood Markets, we've got Microsoft, we've got Amazon, we've got Apple, we've got Alphabet, we've got Boeing. Now with the best will in the world, I'm not going to cover all of them. But what I am going to talk about is Facebook first and foremost, an awful lot of bad publicity in recent weeks. On Thursday, SNAP while beating profits on profits fell short in revenues. And the share price absolutely tanked, I mean, it tanked over 20% after hours, 25%. So as a proxy for Facebook, what does that mean for Facebook numbers when they come out? Or Q3. Now in Q2, we saw a 56% rise in Q2 revenues, just over $29 billion. Profits also beat forecasts at $10.3 billion. Monthly active users also rose 7% year on year, it's $2.9 billion. The big question is, all these Apple Privacy changes, which they've warned about and which the markets appear to have shrugged off, they came home to roost in SNAP's numbers. So will we see a similar reckoning when Facebook reports its latest numbers this week? Profits are still expected to come in at a relatively healthy $3.16 a share compared to the $3.61 that we saw in Q2. So watch the 200-day move in average because that has managed to hold most of this move higher in Facebook shares since May last year. If we get a disappointing number, this really needs to hold, otherwise we could see Facebook start to roll over. Apple Privacy changes, new products, iPad upgrades, Apple Watch 7 upgrades, the new MacBook Pros. All of these new product launches from Apple continue to support the share price, but again, are we starting to see a little bit of failing momentum? Are we starting to see supply chain disruption hitting what is the cash machine that is Apple? They've already announced that they're cutting iPhone production by a considerable amount. Now whether or not that was to basically shift some of those chips to their MacBook Pros, only they will know, but certainly they are big ticket numbers in terms of the iPhone 13s and what have you. So maybe in terms of cutting their iPhone production, what they're doing is they're shifting those chips away from the iPhone and towards the upgrades to the MacBook Pros. Nonetheless, profits are expected to come in around about $1.23 a share. Apple was still not offering guidance for any of its quarters, but that still hasn't stopped the upward movement in its share price. And certainly when we look at the direction of travel for prices, we're still very much in the overall uptrend. So again, 200-day moving average and the trend line support. So it's interesting how all of these sort of tech shares are still fairly close to the 200-day moving average and still significantly above them. So the trend is still higher. The big question is whether or not that trend could well be on the turn as we head into the final quarter of this year. This is Apple's Q4, by the way. I'm going to finish off with Microsoft. And again, look at this, another decent uptrend for Microsoft. It's only been a decent year for Microsoft's share price. I think for me, more than anything else, I'm going to be particularly interested in uptake of Windows 11, which went live on the 5th of October. So in terms of their guidance going forward, I'll be particularly interested in that. Obviously, we've seen fairly decent performance from personal computing and gaming, which has had a fairly decent year helped by the XboxX new gaming console. This is Microsoft's first quarter. It was a record revenue number in Q4 of $46.15 billion, driven by a 50% rise in Azure, which is their cloud business, which competes with Amazon. And that saw revenue rise to $17.38 billion. The downside was obviously Microsoft branded surface PCs declining 20%. Largely again, supply concerns. Licensed revenues from consumer PCs also saw declines due to supply concerns. However, what I would say is that slowdown could have been as a consequence of people holding back because of the launch of Windows 11. So it's difficult to tell the difference between the two there a little bit. Anyway, for this first quarter, Microsoft said it expects revenues to come in between $43.3 billion and $44.2 billion, with profits expected to come in at just over $2 a share. Keep an eye out for Amazon's Q3 numbers on the 28th of October. Alphabet on the 26th as well. Robinhood markets on the 26th in addition to that and Boeing as well. Keep an eye out for Boeing and aircraft orders and what have you. So I've pretty much gone on maybe gone on a little bit too long. But as I say, there was an awful lot to get through. So thanks very much for listening. Hopefully there won't be as much to try and cram in next week. But in the meantime, I'd like to wish you all a great weekend. Thanks very much for listening. It's Michael Houston talking to you from CMC Markets.


Wow. So last night in the presser, John Hardball, he tried to prep us for this. He tried to let us know ahead of time what it was going to be and what to expect because, you know, when Hardball talks about injuries, he's usually very mum on them and he usually speaks about them with this hopeful attitude like, oh, yes, nothing serious. This player is going to be alright. This player should be good. He'll only be out for a little bit. But last night with LJ Fort, he said that he expected it to be bad. So this was something that, again, like I said, he tried to prep us for. And unfortunately, they ended up being right because they said that LJ Fort completely tore his ACL completely. And that's a big blow for the Ravens. Huge blow for the Ravens. LJ Fort was somebody just to go back when he first joined the Ravens, came on in 2019. After, I think he came on after the Ravens just got whooped by the Browns at the crib. They signed this guy LJ Fort and they signed Josh Bynes. And with LJ Fort, I was initially like, man, like, who's LJ Fort? Because I didn't know anything about him. Knew absolutely nothing about him. But my boy Carlo, shout out to my guy Carlo. He told me about him. He was like, man, this guy's smart. He knows his stuff. He's been on a few teams in his career. I think he played with the Steelers, the Browns. He went to the Eagles as well. So this was a new home for him. But he definitely settled in like fast, fast. He settled in like right away. And he certainly made his mark. And that's something that we saw in his game. We saw the smarts. He definitely knows his stuff. You can tell he definitely studies his film like crazy. So this is a big blow for the Ravens. The fact that LJ Fort is going to be gone for the entire season, entire season. And we knew that like they wanted to transition eventually to Malik Harrison having that starting role alongside Patrick Queen. We knew that was on the way. But for it to officially happen like this because this pretty much makes it official that Malik Harrison is going to be starting next to Patrick Queen, even though it was looking like that already, especially how they have been playing them in the preseason. But this, this makes it official. Um, so and it's unfortunate. I hate when roster spots.  Because that's the worst way for something to be decided. But it's, it's an unfortunate part of the business and the worst part of football injuries, people getting hurt. So LJ Fort, he definitely will be missed for sure. That's a, that's a real tough blow, man. That's a tough blow. And he was one of those players where Ravens, they traded for him in 2019. And then they signed him back for another year. They were like, okay, yeah, we really like this guy. Let's bring him back another year. So they had him last year.  Let's re-sign them again. Well, but first, they cut them. First they cut them. And that upset a lot of us, especially me, because I'm like, why? What are you doing? But then they re-signed and I was like, okay, okay, they just wanted to bring him back for a little bit cheaper. They wanted to save a little bit of money. I was like, okay, all right, business move. So the Ravens obviously love what they saw and what they've seen from LJ Fort thus far. That's why they just kept bringing them back.  But now you got to think that with him being on injured reserve now, with his season with the Ravens being over, you almost got to feel like this may be the end of LJ Fort with the Baltimore Ravens. And the reason I say that I definitely wouldn't want it to be. But now they're forced to see what life is like without LJ Fort. And with them continuing to sign him to short-term deal after short-term deal, you could tell by that that they weren't looking at him as a long-term option. And then especially with the draft, when they drafted a Patrick Queen, when they drafted a Malik Harrison, they drafted their linebackers of the future. But now, unfortunately with this injury, that makes the future the present. That makes the future the right here right now. So it's, man, it just sucks, man.     Man, Ravens, so now their linebacker is currently on the roster. Of course, Patrick Queen and Malik Harrison, who we talked about, but also Christian Welch. Christian Welch, he is now he has an opportunity, or the Christian Welcher. I feel like I'm messing up his name. But it's like he now he has an opportunity to really make the roster. Now I remember he went out last week. He went out last week with a, I think a little shoulder stinger next thing or something like that, but he played last night. So he was all in the game. So he is back. We are still, of course, still have Chris Board as well. Atara Laka, I think he's still injured. So I could see them putting Atara Laka on injured reserve this week, possibly, and then maybe they may sign a veteran there. They may sign another veteran. I'm not sure of all the guys who are out there, but that could be a move that they make because their linebacker super athletic, fast, physical, but they are lacking a little bit in the experience department. Just a little bit. Not to say that they wouldn't be able to do it. Not to say they wouldn't be able to still get stuff done and get the job done and play good enough to be successful because I think they can, but they're still lacking in that experience department. So with them lacking there, I would expect them to go sign, sign a linebacker. Now, another thing that this does for the Ravens, we know by Tuesday, by Tuesday at 4pm, like we've been talking about, they have to get down to 80 men on the roster. So they have to make five roster moves. So unfortunately, this is going to be one of them when they place LJ Fort on injured reserve. Since again, it's confirmed that his season is over torn ACL. That's it. So this will be one of the roster moves that they make. So I would expect them to announce that roster move probably tomorrow where they place them on injured reserve. So then they'll have four additional roster moves to make. So of course, you know, we'll keep you posted on whatever happens with that. But man, this is just a real unfortunate situation, man. Because LJ Fort, not only was he a good player and a smart player, and he was one of those guys getting a right place right time. He's a right place, right time type of player. But he was somebody that was liked and respected in the locker room, too. So it's always tough. I mean, it's always tough when you lose anybody. But when you lose somebody that brings a good morale to the team, that makes it even tougher.   But this is this is actually the first major injury that the Ravens have gotten this entire offseason. Well, they did have a they did have the undrafted undrafted rookie free agent guy who he went out for the season. I forget his name. He's a defensive lineman, though.  And this is the first big injury to somebody who is known on a team and has been a starter on a team before. But hopefully it's the last because we had all been like every time we hear of an injury, we all started to sweat because we heard about so many injuries during training camp, during practices, doing all of that stuff. And we would just be like, Oh, boy, because again, Marlon Humphrey, Hollywood Brown, Sammy Watkins, Brandon Stevens, Jimmy Smith, Rashad Bateman, of course, Miles Boykin, Deon Kane, Ben Cleveland, Kevin Zitler, and it's still more. We could go down a long list because the list was very long of injuries that we've heard about Ravens players sustaining throughout the offseason. But even with as long as that list has been all the injuries, they haven't been significant. They haven't been season ending. The longest one right now, the worst one is Rashad Bateman. That's the worst one. And he's looking. Y'all saw the videos where he's, he's working his way back. So with Harbaugh talking about September, I was like, hold up, I don't know, man. Could you be right with how he was looking in the video? I'm no doctor though.  Now if September had a 31st, then I'd be like, all right, Harbaugh, yeah, here we back in September for sure. But we'll see what happens with that. But Rashad Bateman's injury, that's been the most significant one. So we, now this takes the place for that, unfortunately. And it's, he's done for the year. So team keeping clean. Appreciate y'all, man. Keep your heads up.  I feel, I feel for LJ, man. I feel for LJ. I feel for his family, man, because man, you never want to see your, your brother, your son, father, cousin, uncle. You never want to see them go out like this. But that's, that's NFL, man. That's part of, part of the game, unfortunately, man. So I love y'all team keeping clean. I appreciate y'all team keeping clean. And I'm out, man.


And what about evidence showing probiotics as direct treatment to improve heart health through the gut? So far, there's only one human clinical trial that did assess this in the internal journal of cardiology, but the results here were actually quite promising. In this study, the group taking probiotics showed a significant reduction in the diameter of the left ventricular artery, and swelling of this artery is linked to heart failure. They also documented small improvements in metabolic markers compared to the placebo group, reduced total cholesterol and reduced uric acid levels. It's important to underscore that the effect size here or the magnitude of the benefit is small. So it's not something that if you're frankly hypercholesterolemic is going to get you back down to normal, but this is a supportive therapy that can move you in the right direction.


then ready to go ever since daylight. You see it. Give me Bob Anderson, New York. Thank you, sir. Hello? Robert Anderson on 9-0. I think we're going to get this Panama agreement worked out, you know, and then we're going to have to negotiate to resolve some problems we have between the two of us, yes, and we'll have a full-time ambassador, yes, and all the staff we need, but we want you to be the top lawyer on negotiating with him. I'll do whatever you say, Mr. President. Well, that's what I want, and I'll give you everything you need, and I just want to, if we have to rewrite a treaty, well, we want to look at it carefully, and I just want some fellow that I have absolute confidence in, and I want to be measured by only one standard, and that's what's right and just and fair. And I think if you do that, you could be very helpful. You can start them off and then come in from time to time, but just be kind to my advisor on it and be, let me name you as my man. All right, sir. Now, you know, of course, that I don't really know much about that. I don't care about that. All right. Good thing you don't. You still got your law license. That is correct. Goodbye. Goodbye. Thank you, sir.


Zelensky was guarded by spy aircraft fighter jet during his visit to the United States. Secret details of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's surprise visit to Washington has been revealed. According to media reports, NATO's spy aircraft and U.S. fighter jets accompanied Zelensky to Washington on Wednesday in his first foreign trip since the start of the war. According to media reports, Zelensky traveled to Washington on a U.S. Air Force Boeing C-40 Clipper as part of the secret operation to avoid any sabotage by Russia. The Boeing took off from Poland's Zasov airport. After entering the airspace of the North Sea, the Ukrainian President was escorted by German Boeing AWACS spy plane and the U.S. Air Force F-15 fighter to Washington. Zelensky announced his visit to Washington on Wednesday. In his Twitter account, he said the visit was aimed at bolstering military support to his country. During the 10-hour visit to Washington, Zelensky met President Joe Biden and addressed the U.S. Congress. In the historic address to the Congress, Zelensky pledged his country would not surround the two Russia in the face of Moscow's aggression. He also expressed hopes that U.S. lawmakers would continue to support Ukraine on a bipartisan basis, stressing that investment in Ukraine is investment in the global security and democracy. The surprise visit comes as Washington announced a $1.85 billion in military aid to Ukraine that included much-desired Patriot air defense system.


Hi, welcome to Think Tech. We are raising public awareness on technology, energy, diversity, and globalism. This show is center stage, and I am your host, Donna Blanchard, proud managing director of Kumakuhui Theater. We are coming to you live from Pioneer Plaza in the heart of downtown Honolulu, very near Kumakuhui Theater. I am excited to introduce my guest today. This is a very interesting gentleman I've wanted to talk to for some time. His name is James Leonin. I believe I pronounced that correctly. And he is a singer and guitarist with the band Granite Saints. Welcome, James. Oh, nice to be here. Yeah, I'm anxious to talk to you. I want to hear all about what you do with the Granite Saints and the history of them and where you started before them and the formation of that group. Because it's a very, you have a very unique sound. Oh, thank you. Thank you for trying. Let's start off with what you are working on right now with the Granite Saints. Right now, we have two shows coming up, two big shows. We have this coming Saturday at Next Door, right on Hotel Street. And then on the 27th, we get Crossroads over Hawaiian Bryant's. Oh, yeah. We got a lot in the works. In fact, our T-shirts just got finished today. So I picked them up. I'm pretty stoked about that. 25 bucks. Oh, good deal for a similar shirt. We're also in the studio recording. So that's number one priority next to performing. We're gonna try and space the performing out a little bit so we can focus on studio work. Oh, do you have, you don't have any EPs currently? No, we've been together less than, this current lineup has been together less than five months. This current lineup, less than that. The lineup I had before, it's always been myself and Giri Haynes. We've been together for a year. So Giri and I have like an anniversary. But with regard to this current lineup, it's less than five, six months. Oh, wow. Okay, so this is a good time for you to start getting into the recording part that you played out a few times. Yeah, these guys are very, they're experienced.  So it's a nice diverse group. Okay, cool. Experienced. All right, so next door this weekend and then Hawaiian Bryan's. The 27th. In two weeks. That's a big stage. Where are you gonna be in Hawaiian Bryan's? At Crossroads. Oh, right at Crossroads. Yeah, okay. I guess that's the bigger stage from what I understand. Yeah, we're gonna make our mark. Good. Well, let's see if we can help you do that. Let's talk about you and then we'll get more into the band and we've got some photos we can look at later. Okay. So what is your background? Did you grow up here? No, grew up on the mainland and came back when I was in the Navy, you know, and then went back, met the kid's mom, stayed there for too long, came back like probably five years ago. Oh, okay. Or five years ago. And when did you start getting interested in music? Long, I'll age myself if I say the Beatles. You can just say your age. Oh yeah, the Beatles. I don't. I saw the Beatles. My first record, my 45, was I Wanna Hold Your Hand. Yeah. With I Saw Her Standing There on the Flipside. Yeah. And then as I got older, I thought, oh, you know, it's just a great way to meet, you know, anybody who says that, oh, I'm doing it for the music when they start. No, they're not. You did it for the girls? Absolutely. You're the only person who has ever admitted that. I'm honest. I'm honest. Good for you. Okay. And you must have had some sort of natural talent for it. Wait, did it work? No. As far as the ladies know. But I started out as a bassist. And I played some classic venues like the original CBGBs. Did that once or twice?  We did some big music halls in Philadelphia. Oh. So, you know, we cut our teeth. And this is a band in how young were you? Oh, I was probably in my, late 20s? No, I was in my 20s. You were in your 20s. Do you have musicians in your family? Oh, yeah, my brother. My brother is a, he's a really good guitarist. And I never told him that, but he's probably seeing it now. So, we never give each, we always tease each other instead of give credit. Oh, well nice, I'm glad you finally did that. So, he's your older brother? No, younger. Oh, younger brother. Yeah, he used to write the songs and play guitar. And it was, I figured, well, pick up bass because it's only got four strings, it's easier.  And we were three P's. We released a five song EP. Oh, wow. Yeah, and we were called The Agents. And it recently, a couple of years ago, somebody in France bought a copy of it for like $78 or something like. Oh, wow. I'm like, hey, don't I at least get a Coke or a pizza or something? Because that's what you would have been happy to have when you were in your 20s. Did you ever study music formally? No. Formally? No, never did. Just picked it up, listened. And as far as being a singer, songwriter, I started that probably about three, yeah, about three, four years ago. Because I just got tired of backing everybody else, backing everybody else up on bass. So I'm like, you know what, I can do this. I can write my own stuff.  Well, no, I could always play guitar. It was just a matter of creating the songs. And being able to put a song together where it can be presented. It's kind of, I hate to use the term, but it's like art.  If they can do it and I'm complaining, then you know what, I'll just do my own. It is art, absolutely. If it weren't, everyone would be doing it. Right? And just the fact that you have the desire to do it makes you an artist, I think. But then you do it successfully, that makes you a good artist. Yeah. So, okay, I have a whole bunch of questions for you then. If you decide I'm gonna write some music, how did you question yourself at all with any of the music? Did I hear that before? Am I copying something else I've heard? No, not so much. I know I take, I mean, everything in rock and roll is all reused, it's the same chord structure, it's the same, everybody's trying to capture that same level of angst or anger or love or whatever. But it's all been done before, that's all. You just have to find a way to make it yours. Yeah. Because you can hear an artist and you can say, he's the most rock and roll person on the planet. But these are my songs, but then when you hear it, it's like, wait a minute, that sounds like the Eagles, wait a minute, that's kind of mellow, how can you say that's not rock and roll? Yeah. You know, that's elevator music. Well, a lot of those rock and roll songs have been very easily turned into elevator music. Oh yeah. There's little tweaks here and there that make that happen. Sure. It's a little scary to think of. But so who do you feel like were your most powerful influencers? My influence is, you name it, Elvis, Johnny Cash, the Beatles, the Stones, Motorhead, the Ramones, the Sex Pistols, The Clash, Social Distortion, my Jimi Hendrix, James Brown, it all runs the gamut.  And I do love what I'm doing, or else I wouldn't still be doing it. I love it, I love performing. It's great therapy. It is. And when you come home after playing a gig, we'll get back to the songwriting in a moment, but when you come back home after playing a gig, what are you feeling? Exhausted, and I think that's the way it should be. I think if you're gonna do a good, if you're gonna put on a good show, if you're gonna put on a good rock and roll show, you should be totally exhausted. After, and I'm not talking after a three hour play, 40 minutes, down 20 minutes, even if it's just a 40 year, 50 minute show, you gotta put 110% in, in my opinion. It's not just a physical exhaustion either, right? Oh, it's everything. It's everything. You're physically, emotionally, you're just, I'm just drained, and I like it. Because it exercises all that stuff, right? It gets rid of a lot of stuff. Yeah, I absolutely agree. Even if you're singing a love song, you can pour anger into whatever is going on with you that day into it. Okay, which makes me wonder, there's been a big shift in music over the last 60 years. Most songs used to be written in a major key. We used to, and we all associate a major key with happy music. Now, almost all of the music coming out is written in a minor key. Yeah, I know. So when you start off with Beatles and Elvis, you start off major key. I love major keys. I love major keys, and I love three chords, and I love four, four time. Oh, that is. So I don't get lost. Some of the coolest songs ever written have been, you know, no more than four chords. You know, four changes, and as long as you play it loud, people are gonna like it, they'll take it. Yeah. Okay, awesome. So you decided that you wanted to start your own music, start writing your own music, and did you feel any trepidation the first time you let someone else hear that? Oh, sure, because when you play with a band, I started out acoustically. When you start out with a band, you got everybody covering you. You know, you can make a mistake and nobody's gonna notice this difference because everybody else is so loud. When you get out there with your songs on an acoustic by yourself, it's like you're naked. It's like, it's like, okay, okay. But so yeah, there was some trepidation, but then once I eased into it, I was like, okay, let me build, let me build off of this, see what I can do to make it better. Do you still play out on your own sometimes? I try not to. Just because, I just don't have the, I just don't have it on me right now, or in me. I don't have it in me to do it right now, right? Right now my focus is on the Granite Saints and how we can move forward and we wanna hit major markets. We don't just wanna be big here in the state. We wanna hit major markets. And that's our goal, that's our plan. You'll be touring around someday then. Yeah, and not that we wanna be rock stars, we just wanna get our music out. And if we tour and we're being a rock star as a byproduct in so bit, I'll just need a massage therapist after every show. Yeah, that's part of what you get when you tour, apparently. Yeah, I'll throw it in the rider. There you go. I would. Yeah, too, please. Yeah. Okay, we're gonna go ahead and go to our first break. Okay. I think this is a good place to segue into that if you don't mind, Zuri. We're gonna go to our first break. We'll be back in about a minute. Please stay put. Hey everybody, my name is David Chang and I'm the new host of a new show, The Art of Thinking Smart. I'm really excited to be able to share with you secrets on giving yourself the smart edge in life. We're gonna have awesome guests and great mentors of mine from the political, military, business, nonprofit, you name it, so it's something for everybody. Aloha, I'm Chantel Seville, host of The Savvy Chick Show on Think Tech, Hawaii. This show is for you. It's all about inspiring and empowering girls of the future to do what they love, get out there and be healthy, fit and confident. If you're up for that, 11 a.m. every Wednesday, I'll see you there. Aloha! How you doin' there, lassies and laddies? This is Angus McTech here on Think Tech, Hawaii and my favorite show, Hibachi Talk, with my good old buddies, Gordo, the Texara and Andrew, the security guy. Please join us every Monday, no, it's Friday, every Friday from 1 p.m. to 1.30 p.m. here on Think Tech, Hawaii and you can also find us on YouTube, Hibachi Talk. Aloha! Hi, we're back, we're live on the Think Tech Digital Network. This is Center Stage. If you would ever like to join us in the studio here in downtown Honolulu Pioneer Plaza, you may do so, just email Jay, that's J-A-Y at ThinkTechHawaii.com and he will hook you up, you can come join us. Okay, we're back with James Leonin and we're talking about when you decided that you wanted to write your own music and you like your major chords, which is awesome. I love that. We don't get enough of it anymore, I think. I think it's too easy to go for a minor chord and say, I'm emoting now. Well, don't get me started on emoting. Listen, that's where we're going next. Because I hear a lot of, I hear a lot of music and it just sounds like it could be, it reminds me of the canned laughter from the old television shows. And as much, I think artists today are trying to play what people like instead of creating something and hoping that, hey, I hope this catches. You know what I mean? It seems like they just want to, oh, let me play this, let me write it like this for the crowd. They're guaranteed to like it. No, you're right for yourself. Yeah. You're right songs for yourself. Put it out, hope people, hope it catches. I think that's what happens with a lot of artists who they have a great first album and we can't wait for the second one, you get the second one and you're like, man. Yeah, totally disappointed. That happened with Gaga. That woman is, she's an exceptionally talented woman and her first album first came out. It may not be your cup of tea. I'm guessing it isn't. But she had some awesome music in there. She wrote all of her instrumentation, everything. Everything was her and it was great. And then I feel like maybe it was someone behind her saying now you gotta please the audience. Yeah, that's what I'm thinking too because I can guarantee you one thing. However far we go with this, we're gonna write for us. We're not gonna write for, oh, let's do it so we can get on MTV Music Awards if they still have it. It's like, hey, we're writing for us. We're writing and if people like it great and if they don't like it, well, that's great too. And that's our attitude. Cool, well, and people are liking it. Yeah, yeah, we're getting a lot of positive response. You're getting the big stage. Oh, don't get me on a big stage. You are gonna get on the big stage in two weeks. You want a show. Awesome. So when the music that you are writing, are you writing this collaboratively with the Granite Saints? Are you bringing it in? It's myself and the lead guitarist, Gary Haynes. Sometimes I can write a song with lyrics and bring it in and the guys pick up on it. Or sometimes Gary will come in with a riff and I'll have lyrics lying about and it'll just click and that's it.  That came about that way. Yeah, and out of the 20, you know, probably 15 or 16, we can just go out and just do, yeah. Wow, that's a good, that's a couple of CDs right there. Not bad for less than six months. Who knows where you'll go from there?  If I heard something of yours and then a day later I heard something different, would I say, oh, that's that same group? You know what I mean? Not quite sure. Is your sound recognizable? Like Miranda right now? Oh yeah, we have a signature sound. We definitely have a signature sound. Okay. Yes, indeed, it's loud. It's loud. That's our sound, it's loud. It's rock and roll music. The way I've always interpreted it, just play it loud doesn't really matter.  Yeah, and the lyrics that you're working with, these are, do you ever feel like something might be too personal but you start writing it and then question if it's wanted out there? Absolutely not, I just write and I have to see how it flows in rehearsal but as far as the lyrics, no, I just, I write it and I throw it out and if it works, it works. Again, it's all based on how it goes over at rehearsal and then there's sometimes, I'll write a song and we'll play it a couple of times at rehearsal but then there's like two or three songs I can't remember, we can't remember. Like, hey, how'd that go again? What's that song you wrote last week? Oh, jeez. It'll always come back though. That's on point, I hope. Yeah, well, yeah, I feel that way about our, oh, we've got your bandmates are showing up here. Is that you, that's not you. Oh, yeah, that's me. That is you? Yeah, I think so, that's a hat. Oh, I get one hat like that. That's a hat, that's how we know. Yeah, I feel that with our, see, now, yeah, it's the hat and the tattoos. You, anything that you create will come back to you when the time is right. Yeah, yeah. You don't have to worry about holding tight under something, it'll always come back. We, I thought we saw, I thought I saw a tweet just a moment ago, Rich. Then we got a second one, yeah, Kendra Black tweeted the granite saints prevailing and ailing music industry. There you go. I don't know Kendra Black, but yeah, that's what we try to do. We think the music industry is kind of ailing. Again, like I said, everything sounds like, it's like so pre-packaged. Just go buy it and there you go buy. What's one? I can't remember the band's name. They're from Canada. Oh, I don't know, metal, rock? Like top 40, cold play? Are they from Canada? I don't know. I think so. I think it's them, they're pretty repulsive. So I go back, take Justin Bieber with you. I caught myself humming one of his songs the other day and it really upset me. Okay, I gotta go. I know, but now listen, he had, well, that's part of the hook, you know, that someone is right, it's not him writing these. Someone is writing a good hook. Who's I interviewing? Jack Doom, you know, who does the bookings. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And he talked about, sometimes to write his music, he will listen to like Britney Spears, some of the younger artists too, but they have someone writing good hooks for them. Do you concern yourself with that at all? I like to make my stuff, even though it's loud and it can be sometimes, couple songs might be a little offensive to people just because of the, how I, in my delivery. The actual words? Yeah, yeah, and how I deliver it. It might be offensive to some, but at the same time, you need a good hook. You need a good hook, whether it's a guitar line or a drum part or a chorus or, you know, you need a hook, it's that simple. You know, it's the same thing with musical theater. You want the song that people hum when they leave the theater, it sticks in there. And that's what Justin Bieber did to me. I hate him for it, I really do. I don't have anything to do with a young man. I'm sure his parents are very lovely people. So the way you deliver it, your emotion that you're putting in is what you're talking about, yeah. That's awesome. Yeah, I tend to rail slash rant, but not in a way that you can't understand what I'm saying, but you just under, you get the emotion that I'm trying to deliver. Our show is a pretty emotional. Yeah, yeah. Well, I'm sorry to say I haven't seen one yet, but I'm very anxious for Saturday night at Next Store, which is Next Store to bar 35. Oh yeah. And Next Store, just in case people are wondering. I happen to be down there today. I was like, oh, that's not where it's at. Yeah, right there. Good space, partners of Kumakuboi Theater. Oh, okay, okay. Yeah, happy you're gonna be in there. So what is next?  Yep, yep, that's what we're working on right now. We have, I wanna say we have two in the can. We're probably gonna do another four more to put on the EP, so we're pretty stoked. We'll put it on iTunes and whatever, whatever other website that people can pay for and download. Can you download? Cool. Get it out there. Oh yeah. Yeah, because you can, it's so much easier than it used to be, you have to start there. And then, are you the person, are you doing the booking and the marketing as well? Well, we all tried to do the booking, but we wanna choose our spots.  For us, like I said, our goal is the major market. So we wanna do exposure, exposure shows this way. Let's say, for example, let's say the cure comes to town again. We'll say, hey, we got these guys on the bill. Oh, there you go, okay. We don't wanna just do, oh, we're big in Honolulu. Oh, we're big on Maui. Oh, we're big on Kauai. Oh, you know what I mean? It's as much as I love it, it's still a limited market. There's limited places to go. Well, and there's a limit for your audience. How many times are gonna be able to be really excited to go out and see you? Yeah, so you need to spread out a little bit. I think the next goal, once we conquer the state, next one's gonna be San Diego. I don't wanna get into San Diego. Got some connections there? Maybe be able to work some. Be able to work some. Okay, okay, that's good. So do you, was the band called The Granite Saints when it was you and, I'm sorry. Gary? Gary, yeah, initially. Initially, when I did Acoustic, I got with a percussionist, Brady Kamai. Oh, yeah, you're Brady. Great guy, and he wanted to back me up, and I said, hey, we'll just call ourselves The Granite Saints, just because. Oh, nice. Yeah, and we made a small splash, but I wanted to take it to another level. Okay, so then you reach out to people, or did people, tell me a little bit about the making of the band. Oh, okay, about the making of the band. First, again, it was just Brady and myself. I did this one song called Mary Jane, and you can figure out what that's all about. It's about Mary Jane, and I love song. A fast, loud love song. But then, so I did a rough draft of it, and somehow Gary, my guitar player, he's like, oh, that's a cool song, and he put some slide to it.  He's like, hey, guys, mind if I play with you? I'm like, yeah, sure, come on, let's see how it works. And it worked, and then we were, the drummer we were playing with, we needed to go, we love the guy, Al, but we needed a bigger, more, oh, robust sound. Yeah, yeah, more driving. And that's when Brian, he used to play with Sire, he's like, hey, mind if I, how about I play with you guys? And it just jelled, so it's the four of us now, myself, Nate, Gary, and Brian. That is so awesome, do you know how hard some people work to get a band together? It's like trying to get in a good relationship. It's like trying to get out of a good girlfriend, but what happens? You're singing my tune. Okay, that is so awesome that it came together, and people work long and hard to make that happen, and everyone in the band sees the same vision moving forward. Yeah, yeah, we're all on the same page musically, and how we wanna go forward. That is awesome, then that is exactly what is gonna happen, you're gonna move forward. Congratulations. So thank you, thank you so much. We gotta wrap up, I'm really looking forward to seeing you guys on Saturday night. You'll like it. I love it, I love it, I'm sure. Okay, thank you very much for being here today. Yeah, thank you so much. Thank you for joining us here on Center Stage. There's a few other people I would like to thank, Rich Praepus, who is our floor manager, who's right over there, thank you, Rich. I'd like to thank our studio overlord, Zuri Bender, who is in my ear, and Jay Fiedel, who somehow manages to put all of this together. Thank you very much, we'll see you next week on Center Stage. Bye.


Hello, I'm Claudio Gosti, we are at the sea base for the DM-25 bar camp among the members of this movement and we are presenting the Green Paper on Technological Sovereignty. I guess to me we're at this very interesting time and I don't think we can be jaded. I don't think that we can say that all hope is lost. We are up against monumental struggles, perhaps more than any generation in the history of the world. It's not a hot conflict but I think that we are involved in a cold war for our minds. I think we have a lot of fear that technology is going to change the way we work and that robots are going to take our jobs but actually reality's automated decision making is already changing the way we work. We cannot really express ourselves on something that we do not understand and that is one of the problems in my opinion on democratized technology that we should also explain to a broader audience how this technology works which is the power behind it and what we can try to control or to use in our interest. I hear a lot of people saying oh just get off this platform or just do this but when it comes to the world not everyone has the privilege that we have not everyone has the disposable income to make more ethical consumption decisions. Technology is done by people who are developers and hardware people and software engineers they're usually very good people. The evil side comes from the business perspective. So harvesting these people to co-create solutions that actually serve the humans and solutions that are owned not by a company, not even a social impact company but they are owned by the collective. I think we need two solutions. I think we need more investment in platform cooperatives that are owned by citizens or by city authorities that's on one hand on the other hand we need to also control better and regulate better the companies that already exist. Having spent the day talking about technology and democracy here what I want to say to you all is that democracy is the technology that we need the only system we've developed so far that has any shot of bringing us through the challenges that we face in civilization right now so please when you're thinking about the future in technology, bet on democracy. I would like everybody to read this and to come back to us and say what they like about it or what they don't like about it and what would be I think the best compliment is if people would copy us as in through open source and spread these ideas and build on them and adopt them and incorporate them and change them and carry them forward.


Good morning folks. Steve Rhodes coming to you live from the shores of, uh, well, a cloudy Delray Beach, Florida. This year, a leg name update. We've got a sea of green out there. All the us indices that we track, they're trading to the upside. All the sectors with inside the S and B 500 are doing the same. The Dow is up 203 points. That's about a half a percent move. Nearly 1% for the S and P or 46 points. A little over 1% for the NASDAQ 100 210 points there. Nearly 1% for the Russell 19 135 points. Another 3% move for the semis today. Markets are not going to top without the semis topping. Trendy is there up 176. You've got gold traded out at 21 61. That's up three bucks. Silver's up 20 pennies. She's printed out 24 70 like recruit off 62 cents. Natural gas back in nickel and the 30 year treasury is flat at 121 20. Let's figure out what all that means by looking at that nine panel market update chart. We begin by taking a look at the ES mini. That's in the upper left hand side as soon as Stevie can get to the tab. There we go. Where are we at? We're at a new all-time high today. Your price can close above the high from March 4th. That's at 51 57 75. Well, then the things are just simply super bullish. Even if we don't close above it, it's still bullish out there. Now the issue right now with the markets. This the confusing thing that is that spot politics is still above its 50 day exponential moving average. The 50 days at 13 87. The spot picks at 14 40. That's as any surprises. We will see a snike swoosh to the downside, but we got to get a surprise first. If we take a look at the end queue, the end queue is targeting its all time high. It's trading. Let's see. The low of that is 18 234. We're trading inside that swing point. The swing point is from March the 4th. Odds favor move to that high. That's at the 18 377 level. US dollar index close today below the B point, which is the low of February 22nd. We had, I believe, Hector identified this as a possibility yesterday. Right now we're trading below that low. That low again is at 103 11. That gives us an A to B equal CD to the downside. Now the initial one to one price projection would take us down to 10248. Goldilocks, I believe today will become bar number eight of a TD 9 count. We could or should see some type of short term top between today and next Monday. Silver does not have that same pattern out there. We'll have to take a look at the silver charts. What we do know is Silver's bullish and is targeting its recent high. The one from back on December 22nd. That's up at the 25 11 area lights recruit consolidated with inside its daily profile after finding resistance. That is descending trendline profile support 77 34 resistance 79 85 natural gas is forming a new profile. Looks to me like price might want to go target that 180 level and a 30 year treasury. It's going to go ahead and confirm a TD 9 count topping pattern today out there. Folks, stay tuned for the Trader Zed show. But if you have to start your Thursday, please have a terrific one. Thanks for joining us. We'll look forward to speaking with you again soon. Take care enough.


Hey you guys, so it's time for another story time and today the story is called the contract now I've thought of this story Once before I retold it twice out loud and twice in my head But I don't have the story completely thought out so I don't know how many parts this is going to be I'm trying to make these story times under three parts because I don't want it dragging out Okay, so it's called the contract it is set in 1987 the location is Los Angeles and Our main character our main. Well, yeah the main character. Her name is tiara. She is 23 years old She is originally from Florida She is Her parents are immigrants from Haiti. Oh, yes girl So tiara is the middle of three girls Her oldest sister is currently in pharmaceutical school and hers. She's a senior actually She's just about done a younger sister is actually graduating from high school soon And she's on her way to college now tiara is the black sheep. She did not go to college She had no desire to go to college her dreams was to always be a movie star So that's one of the reasons why she moved to Los Angeles Her parents were very upset especially her mother was very upset that they had came to this country They worked hard to put all their kids to school through school just for tiara to be like nope I'm not doing it. So let's just jump right into the story y'all. Okay, so here we go You know tiara gets up kind of strikes stretches her arms and she looks into the mirror herself tiara was all a five foot seven. She was Athletic build she pride herself in having a good shape. She made sure that she worked out She did yoga three times a week And so she turned trying to look herself to make sure that she was looking okay before she went Into the other room to knock on bring a store to see why she was playing their music so loud So she knocked in the door. She heard it in a brand. Yeah, come on in Walk in and there was Brianna laying on the couch Wrestling through a magazine. She's like, what are you listening to tiara still a wife into the sleep out of her eyes? Yeah, and she yells at Brianna. She's like, what are you listening listening to? Brianna puts a magazine. She's a girl that's they knew Jody Wiley tiara's like Jody Wiley You mean the girl used to sing with Shalimar Yeah, the girl just sing with Shalimar now.  They both work at a local nightclub called the ozone. Okay, so Tiara rolls her eyes. She's like, all right thing girl I'm gonna go ahead and take a shower and start to get ready for the day and Brianna turns around She's like, all right then tea. She calls her tea is a nickname. So, you know tiara goes ahead and get ready for the day takes her shower She goes into the kitchen, you know fix herself some yogurt and she sits down That's when she sees Brianna comes in gets a big box of cereal starts pouring herself some cereal and she looks at her She's like, okay So they don't start work to later on. All right, like eight and nine o'clock, but it's like midday So they're working they waking up late because they get home later All right, it's midday girl like one o'clock in the afternoon So tiara scams the refrigerator in the cupboards and she's like, hmm. I may need to run to the grocery store Brianna, do you need anything? That's when Brianna puts her spoon down.  Yes, girl You know, go ahead and give me some of those Cheetos and tiara's looking at her and she's like, are you sure? Do you want Cheetos? She's like, what are you talking about? See I need so go ahead and give me the hot pockets and Know hot pockets. Give me those pop toys and give me the Cheetos Okay, now go ahead and you know take the cash at my purse So as she's heading out the phone ring so tiara turns around and answer the phone It's their manager from the club. What's her name? her manager from the club Sharon and so Sharon, you know is going on and on how the Other other waitress Melissa won't be able to come in She usually comes in a little bit early to help up and clean and all that But she won't be able to come in and she wants to know tiara and Brianna will come in She will pay them overtime and so she's listening. She's listening. She's like, okay. You know what? I'll be there about ask Brianna. She wants to tag along And so tiara hung up with her and went over to the table with Brianna and she's like, well, what's that? She's what that was Sharon. She's okay. What what did she want and so tiara It's like what she wants to know. We will come in a little bit early because Melissa didn't show up. She's like again. Listen, Brianna. Yes, she didn't show up again But she wants to know if we would show up early and she will pay us double time That's when Brianna looks at her.   Hell. I may have another bowl Child so Tiara's like whatever so she goes ahead about her day She goes down to the garage. They live in the An apartment complex with several several floors, okay So she goes down to the garage where her moped is parked and she proceeds to go to the grocery store as she's you know Flying about on the roads of LA.  So she goes back to the she finally makes it back to the apartment puts up the groceries and for the rest of the Day until it's time for her to go in a little bit early and early for her will be six o'clock instead of eight She lounges around and she just looks at TV. Okay now finally it's time for her to go in She goes to work and she starts cleaning up and doing what she's supposed to do since Melissa's not there yet And she goes into the back into Sharon's office and she knocks on the door and Sharon has her head down and tiara knocks on the door a little bit louder That's when Sharon looks up. She's like, oh come on in tea So tiara goes into the office and she sits down. She's like, well, what's going on with Melissa? And she I'm just looking at her over her eyes. She's like, well, do you really want to know the truth or and so that's when tiara was like I don't know what's going on tell me what's going on.  So y'all back then of those you don't know back then AIDS was basically a death sentence for a lot of people And unfortunately, we didn't have the medication of the drugs that we have now you can now live for a relatively normal life as long as you don't get really sick. So anyway T is like, oh my god.  Well, this is here Well, anything that I can do to help Sharon, you know, I could really use his money Don't tell Brienne matter of fact, don't please don't tell anyone But I'm hoping to move out here in a couple more weeks I just need 500 more dollars and Sharon Sharon's now back to writing whatever she was working on once here I came in she just put her head down. She's like, okay. Yeah, I'll you know We could talk later on and so tears all excited cuz she's thinking great This is all the money I need to finally move out on her own. So she goes back in and to the Nightclub starts getting the chairs together and you know wiping off the tables and all that and eight o'clock rolls around Now the club really doesn't start bumming till 10 o'clock. Let's just be honest, okay So it starts to get a little bit more people coming in Brienne finally comes in girl roles in an hour late Chubby as ever And everything's mopping.  She's like, yeah, go ahead girl.   So tiara excuse me out here was a little nervous and but she's like, okay Um, okay. Okay. I'll do it. She looks around. I don't know what she was looking at child She looks around scanning the you know the audience and she goes up the stairs now This VIP section is up a flight of stairs So she you know gets the order gets their drinks from Brienne Brienne. So is the bartender, right? She goes up the stairs child the second step from the top she falls She falls the drinks spill the drinks actually spilled on Who appears to be one of the the movie producer? He spills on his shoes and tiara gets a fumbling around a fumbling around. She's like, oh my god I'm so sorry, but the movie producer is really nice about it. He's like, are you okay? Are you hurt? She's gonna know I'm fine. I'm just so sorry you guys. Let me just go ahead and clean I'll have someone to come up here clean up this mess. I'll get your drinks ASAP. I'll be right back She's fumbling around for trade. She goes downstairs And for a minute or she stops for a minute and she runs into to the bathroom to check You know how she looks and she spilled drink all over the bottom of her dress So she tries to wipe it off as much as possible Throws the paper towels away run up to the bartender the bart excuse me. She throws the paper towels away runs up to the bar Brienne was like girl, are you okay? She's like, yes. I'm she's like, oh my god. Did you see this? She's like, yeah, girl. Everybody saw you. So here you go. I already made the drinks There you go. So Brienne had saw her Um follow upstairs unfortunately, but she'd already had the drinks prepared for her. She was there for her girl So tiara. It's like, oh, thank you so much Brienne. You a lifesaver.  This is her Fumbling around with the tray, right? She's fumbling around with the tray because she's nervous all of a sudden, right? So finally she says, okay, um, my name is tiara If there's anything else you need, please let me know. Is there anything else that do you guys need anything? One of the girls sitting to the side was laughing. It was basically basically like no, we don't need need anything But it looks like you need another dress. So tiara laughed nervously and she walked downstairs And just continued her night and so kim came up to her. She's like, okay, so well. How did it go? She's like girl I fell up the stairs.  I'm pretty sure you can talk to him then You know tiara kind of shrugged it off and went on about her way So as it's closing down it's about two o'clock and so tiara goes back into the office with sharon Knocks on the door. Sorry y'all knocks on the door. She's like, um, hey miss sharon. Can I speak to you for a second? sharon looks the first comes in she's like, okay, so about that Um payment, you know, is it possible for me to get it on this week's check? So that's when sharon looked at her. She takes off her glasses. She's like, look ti I know I was saying I know I said I would pay you. Um over time But we've been really struggling lately with the club and I have all these depths I need to pay and that's when tiara leans back in her chair. She's like sharon.  You told me you would pay me over time She looked sweetheart Look There's a dozen there's dozens of girls that would take your job right now. So I told you I would pay you when I can but right now I just can't And she looks down at her paperwork and that's when tiara tiara. She's looking at her like And she slowly just gets up She walks back into the main area of the club and brian. She's looking at her like She's like, so what did she say tiara? So you already know what she said?   I'm so sorry. You have to do all that work, but They go home right so a couple of weeks passed by You know brian gets up and she's up eating her bowl of cereal again And tiara's like hey brian. I'm gonna go ahead and go to the grocery store if there's anything else you need And so brian is looking at her like well This is apparently I don't need to be eating no chips and uh Some pop tart she's like bring it you can eat whatever you want.   It's that famous movie producer And so she's like well god girl. I see a producer or director. He's a director. Yeah, I'm sorry the movie director So she mustered up the nerve to go and she taps him on the shoulder He turns around he's handsome honey. He's about six three broad shoulders. He has a nice beard Oh, yes, girl. He has a nice beard tiara gets him to be about 30s You know early early to man 30s, right? So he turns around when he sees her he smiles and so she's like, um I don't know if you remember me or not, but I served you some drinks at octane that night. He said, oh, yeah I'm tiffany to he's she said tiara. He's like, oh tiara. Yeah She's like, yeah, so I'm pretty sure you get people coming up to you all the time But I'm an aspiring actress and I was wanting wanting to know if you have any upcoming movie roles that I could addition for And he kind of looked at her Y'all, he looked at her up and down. He's like, well, I'll tell you what he would reach us into his wallet While it gets out his business card So I'll tell you what why don't you call first thing in the morning this number and speak to my receptionist rose She'll go ahead and schedule you for an upcoming audition and you know Tiara is ecstatic.  He's like, yeah, just go ahead and make sure you call first thing in the morning No, she's like, I will I will thank you so much. Thank you so much She looks down at the business card and it says Paul Winthrop Winthrop, you know, she's doing this with the business card. Y'all this is my earrings. She's like Winthrop That name sounds familiar. Paul Winthrop, but she doesn't know what she remembers it from right so She took some of her fanny pack This is the 80s girl. You gotta have a fanny pack. So she took some of her fanny pack right and gets on her scooter Childish, she's zooming through the scooter.  Excuse me puts away the grocery. See she shares the news with Brienne Brienne is Is um, truthfully excited for her. She's like, well, that's good. Ti, I really do hope you do good on your audition about time, right? She goes to bed early first thing in the morning She calls the receptionist rose rose who was a little bit rude But whatever she calls Scheduled an addition for that Thursday. This was Monday. Okay for that thirsty So breans Brienne is like, oh my god, that's pretty soon. So she's like, okay, whatever So she looks through her closet for something really cute to where she finds this neon green This neon green um Many dress and she has white hoop earrings to work with it, right Thursday is the morning of the audition. She gets there bright and early the receptionist hands her a package of paper Along with a clipboard. She says raise this over and sign the paperwork. Okay at the end. There's a page you sign it dated So Brienne's skipping through it. She's looking at it. It's 15 to 20 pages She's looking down on her at her watch five minutes There's no way she's gonna have time to re-auto all of this and sign it before the before the audition And so that's when she goes up to rose and says, what is this exactly? She's like, just sign it You know, if you really don't have to read it, just go ahead and sign it We always have people just sign it anyway.  Go ahead and sign it Then tiara sits down and waits for her audition right on time. She's being called in into a small room There's three people sitting at a desk including paul A skinny um, rather skinny man that's in the middle and a plus size black woman, which who's wearing a blonde wig So paul there says it's nice to see you tiara and tiara just shook her head. She was so nervous So she asked me should I sit down? Should I stand up? And so that's when paul said go ahead and sit in the chair There was this chair sitting right in the front of them. So she sits down That's when the tall skinny man opened up a file folder and he starts handing pieces of paper to paul and the woman next to him and so the um The guy in the middle of them speaks and speaks directly to her and says Um, we just have a couple of questions. We want to ask you before we get started with the audition. She's like, okay That's fine So the first question he asked her was how many sexual partners have you had? And tiara was like, excuse me She wasn't sure if she had heard him correctly She said excuse me How many he's like, yes, how many sexual partners have you had? and she's like I don't understand what they have to do with this audition And so that's when paul The guy came the guy linked over to paul and whispered to his ear and that's when paul said look tiara Um, we're gonna be asking a certain number of questions We'll go ahead and skip to the next question But eventually eventually we're gonna go back to this question and you need to answer it And so tiara kind of shifted in her seat uncomfortably. So she's like, okay. So next the woman asked her a question And she looks at her. She's like, um Have you had any thoughts to ever harm someone? And tiara was like, what do you mean harm someone? And so the woman looked at her. She's like, well, have you had any thoughts ever had any thoughts of wanting to harm or kill someone? That's when tiara was looking around. She's like she's confused. She's like, what type of audition is this? That's it for part one y'all


What is going on guys welcome back to the channel critical overload here So we're gonna be talking about Chucky season 3 part 2 in this video here today But we're mostly on to be also going over Don Mancini's comments over these past couple years and recently today with variety and Go into a theory of mind that seems to be Leading to a versus movie that I know a lot of people would indeed eat up not to say that it would be good but Just to start off with what Don Mancini has stated in variety today And I also will share my thoughts on that promo package We got of what is supposedly part two even though I guess we were told the only shot four episodes It looks like you guys shot a hell of a lot more But Mancini said today in variety that there are four episodes to go Yes, Chucky has the upper hand now But as you see from the very last scene and last shot of episode four He is more vulnerable than he has ever been Chucky is aging and dying the stakes are completely different now Lexi Devin and Jake's thirst for vengeance is starting to become an adult's thirst for vengeance as Chucky's Horribly says when he kill when he's killing Miss Fairchild I couldn't resist making those kids orphans one last time that incentivizes them to up their games which you'll see as the season goes on He also went on to hype Chucky's midlife crisis He really has to contend with legitimate new contenders to the throne like Megan and Annabelle He has to deal with that place for himself in the pop culture world And that's how we really touched the ground with Chucky We give this off-the-wall character a crisis that has the sting of real life of real pain in real life But it just makes him angrier and you know what happens when Chucky gets angry now See this is where it got interesting even further Mancini kept on talking about Megan and said this about Megan versus Chucky I would say stay tuned Mancini says sounding matter of fact according to variety now see in the past He said this about that about that topic. I haven't seen the movie Megan All I've seen is what everyone else has seen and that's very fun. I wouldn't be opposed to it Okay, so we know he's open to the idea And we know Mancini has hopes for a universe with Chucky after he said this with Forbes back in 2021 The television show fingers crossed will continue onward, but we don't know yet It would certainly not preclude more movies We have plans for more one of the things I've wanted to do over the last five years is to start to build a denser Chucky Multiverse over a different kind of media. We have various plans Percolating on different burners. So there will be more movies and more TV adventure as well as some other things That I can't talk about Now see is that I can't talk about line that reminded me that if I go in chronological order of his lines from 2021 to now Acknowledging that Megan was also filming during 2021 when he was making those comments and his more recent Stay tuned comment from today How do we not know that Chucky season 3 and whatever is to come after season 3 if we go that far isn't laying The groundwork to Megan versus Chucky I mean Kenan Thompson mistook Chucky as one of those AI dolls which he clearly isn't so the show kind of seemed to Hinting at this being a possible endpoint for the series the stage being set with Chucky's midlife crisis his nasty aging nasty ass aging I'll say Looming death and however he inevitably bounces back from it could lead us into Megan versus Chucky If not now definitely after Megan 2 releases Do I think that that project would be a good versus film not really But I think it would be a film I could say is bad But I love it because it delivered what it needed to in the doll fighting department That's not to say that they should just be striving to do that I think you could actually cook up a strong versus film that has compelling Human characters with their own struggles while also centering on the looming battle between Megan versus Chucky I think you could definitely do that You don't have to give us a monster verse Godzilla versus Kong scenario whether humans are so dull soul Uninteresting especially if you're bringing in characters. We already know in love that should make it a thousand times better if you're doing a versus movie Again, I do think this could be a Film that I could see being bad obviously, but still loving it for getting it right when it comes to the doll Fighting also going into my thoughts on the second half of season three From what I saw this does look fantastic to me because you guys know I those of you follow me on Twitter Anyway, I missed last night's finale because I was out watching five nights at Freddy's something I definitely do regret I should have been at home watching the finale But it does genuinely look like it could be better than part one It looks like what Mancini was telling us the season would be so if I don't end up raising my score from 6.5 out of 10 That's fine because that's still a pass for me But I like the footage I saw and I think there is a chance I will inevitably raise it to a seven I'm just being honest from what I saw it looks like they will give us something a lot more tense Suspenseful and a lot more horrific Hopefully in season three part two now if it's more of the same then it's just more of the same You know depending on how it's executed that these are gonna shift my score up Or it's gonna shift it down or it's gonna stay the same Most likely though I could see it shifting up It depends on how this all goes down with Chucky and how they explore this midlife crisis And I guess there will be some acknowledgement acknowledgement of Chucky standing in pop culture as it pertains to these new contenders like Megan and Annabelle as Mancini highlighted So I'll see how that even falls into the story Well, Megan actually be mentioned in part two But do you guys think that the show is actively also laying the groundwork for Chucky versus Megan? Do you think that would be a worthy crossover film? You would like to see do you think Megan is a worthy opponent for Chucky? In reality if we're being honest, the real question is is Chucky a worthy opponent for Megan? Megan's the one who has the advantage. I'm just being quite honest That's not to say that Chucky wouldn't win and I wouldn't be rooting for Chucky But I'm just trying to be fair Let me know what y'all think about this down in the comment section below If you haven't already, of course, make sure you subscribe turn on post notification You never miss a video in the description. I'll have links on my social media accounts I'm on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram You can message me there, of course Let me know if there's any movies news or reviews you'd like me to cover in the future And with all that in mind guys, I will see you in the next video


The history of development in a nutshell is an extension of the history of colonialism, by which we mean folks coming in from other parts of the world telling people what to do and what's good for them, coming in with solutions without knowing local context and also a history of exploitation and extraction. This is the highest wealth concentration in human history and it's not by accident, it's by design and intention. And the question to ask is, what is the role of this private wealth and how has this private wealth been made? It's been made through the exploitation of land and people and through labor in this country of black and brown folks. So what would it look like for this private wealth to play a part in repairing relationships with land, in repairing relationships with people who have been exploited for this wealth generation, those who are experiencing injustice are critical to overcoming it and our partners challenged us by saying that these mainstream structures have historically excluded us. So what you need to do is you need to create a new structure that puts us not just in a tokenizing role but in really a resource sharing decision making role, which really involves sharing power and control. And if we bring a lens of love into our impact investing relationships and into our grant making relationships, how different would that look? I think if we get it right, the potential for change is enormous.