The following is a presentation of TFNN. The morning market kickoff with your host, Tommy O'Brien. Good Thursday morning, everybody. I'm Tommy O'Brien, coming to you live from TFNN just after 9 a.m. Eastern time. We got about 30 minutes to go until the start of trading and you have market slightly in the red this morning, quite the day of volatility yesterday, surging to take out actually Wednesday's highs up as high as 3820. We climb overnight, basically chopping around near the highs we had about 4 p.m. Eastern time until about 2 a.m. Eastern time. Markets at about 3820, you sell off and you're talking about a sell off, man. Volatility nowhere near out of this market yet, folks. You're talking about almost 55 S&P points. You go from 3820 down to an overnight low at just six in the morning of 3763. Since then, you see the volatility almost making it back to 3800, but all the market slightly in the red, still well off the lows that we had not that long ago, folks. You're talking about a few days ago. The lows, 10-3. Yeah, is that Monday? I believe it is, right? That's Monday, man. We were there lower pre-market 3571, so you're still talking about trading 210 S&P points above there. It's only Thursday morning, folks. We got two full trading days ahead of us. We got non-farm payrolls coming up tomorrow. That'll be a big one at 830 in the morning. Right now, NASDAQ 100, you're slightly in the red right now 11,595 and keep your eye on, okay?  These are daily charts. You accelerate from almost 4,200. That's when we got the CPI print for August on September 13th for 4,200, down to 3571. All you've done is bounce a 382 of the move that we've been in, folks, for the better part of just basically three weeks or so. NASDAQ 100, pretty similar action. Now, which one are we dealing with here? Let's take this one off real quick. Nope, that was probably not the right one to take off, but you can see when you take from, nope, that's not, this is September 13th. There's your sell-off on a Fibonacci basis to NASDAQ 100. Also, right at the 382, in terms of the bounce we're getting here. So yeah, they're pretty big bounces, but in the context of the move we've had, you're only talking about a 382. The Dow, let's take that one off, zoom in on the action from September 13th. And this could be, you know, basically is an A to B, C to D on all these indices, right? Dow 8. just above 34,000 to 31. You trade up to 32.5. You trade down to 28.5. And let's just see where we are on a Fibonacci basis on the Dow as well. Yeah, just above the 382, all of them chopping around. Dow just holding above 30,000 right now. We jumped to Bitcoin, 20,190. Now, Bitcoin, you back it up to when this thing started trading for the first time on futures, December of 2017, almost five years ago. And where are we? Right where we started five years ago with some volatility in between, down to 3000, up to almost 70 and right back to where futures began in December of 2017. Keep your eye on that price point because 20,000 is an important one considering. That's where it was five years ago when it started trading on a regulated exchange. OPEC, crude oil, quite the week to the upside. This morning, holding on to relative highs. We're backing off a bit in the last few minutes from 88 to 87.38. But as you can see, pretty much right where we were since we accelerated higher at about 11 a.m. Eastern time. Goal contract up to 1738, we're down to 1720. And we jumped to notes and bonds, quite the pullback from 113.30 on Tuesday. We're at 112.12, right near the lows of yesterday. Zoom in on the action, we make a low, yeah, about 112.08. We were chopping around there overnight on the 10 year and we jumped over to the volatility index this morning. VIX trading just at about 29 for the VIX. All right, jumping around to some of the currencies. Gotta check out the currencies, man, with the actions we've been getting. Dollar rising a bit towards the highs we had yesterday before a little bit of a pullback. You take a look at the dollar. Folks, I'd keep your eye on those channel lines until you really get a decisive break. And at some point, you will get a decisive break, man. We're gonna get some important numbers tomorrow for non-farm payroll numbers. We are in the environment. We're talking to our man, Kevin Hicks, yesterday. We'll talk to him coming up after the first break in a few minutes. Bad news is good news, good news is bad news because the Fed, how far can they go in this economy? How far do they need to go? We're gonna get some important numbers tomorrow. All you have is the dollar index just pulling back to not even the bottom line of this channel line that's been in quite a pullback from 115 to 110. But if we're still in that upward channel and you're still seeing dollar strength in a big way, maybe you're seeing dollar strength because we have higher yields coming at us from the Fed, very possible, very possible. It's not over quite yet in terms of the run and the trends we're having right now. So we're talking about the U.S. dollar, Euro, U.S. dollar. Talk about trend lines. I mean, that would be a nice sell in my book, folks. You set your stop somewhere above that. Maybe you look for above parity to some degree, but you look at the channel line and they've been in tact for the better part of eight, nine months now. And you talk about if we start pushing the bottom line of just the channel line, excuse me, there's your 92, there's your 93. No reason to think it's out of the realm with where we are right now, folks. We jump over the pound, which has its own issues going on. And yeah, they got back within the channel line. So that was gonna be a key test. You accelerate lower on the tax news, actually get back within that channel line, still within a channel to the downward trend. But if that catches a bid to the top side, you could be looking for the pound to about 118. And let's jump around to the dollar yen. Yen, just pushing. Talk to our Mad Teddy Kegstad yesterday. Check out the Tiger Forex report, folks. Look at this thing, just pushing this 145 limit, man, since the volatility coming from 146 almost down to a low of 141. And right now we're at 144.7. Teddy was looking for a weaker yen over there, man. And yeah, tough to deny that this thing is just pushing no matter what they try and do over there to get in the way of that freight train. And as long as the dollar's moving like that, folks, very tough to change that trend. All right, S&Ps right now negative by 11. Let's jump around to some of the stories. We got, and Peloton. So they're cutting, they're cutting 500 more jobs. We take a look at the short-term timeframe. There's your volatility this morning down to eight, up to 894, 853. I'd be real careful, folks, on this one because there is no reason why. There are any different from any other exercise equipment maker. And we know if you watch any type of television or promotional material, there's always a fad in exercise, whether it's the Bowflex, right? Or it's the Nordic track. And they're all around Nordic track. They were able to survive, and now they have many different products, but far from the case. And there's probably better companies out there, even at Peloton, from 850. And jumping over, there's news. So they cut 500 more jobs in an effort to save the company. Both of our restructuring work is complete. Slashed thousands of jobs this year. It has about 3,800 employees, okay? They slashed it by 500, which is 12%. So a decent number, 12% of the workforce, leaving it with just under 4,000 employees. Yeah, along with reductions in operating expenses, and they're trying to reach breakeven point on cash flow by the end of next year. That's a long way. And that's what they're hopeful for, okay? So you wanna know when this company might turn around, try and get into it three to six months ahead of time, maybe when they go cash flow positive. Because right now, that's pretty far out for a company like this. And they have been stemming cash to an absurd degree when they come out with their numbers. Yeah, laying off almost 3,000 in February.  Now they're gonna sub that out, which is probably a smart move overall. Yeah, boy, credit's to us, right? Got a couple articles we could talk about with them, man. You could probably do a whole show. There are some outside money on investment bank spin-off, but the one that you do have is you got J.P. Morgan saying they're worth at least 15 billion and undervalued. Be careful what you hear out there, folks, because you never hear it until it's the end and everybody's out of business. But look at that stock. That's not a tough chart. What is, man? Right now, they're valued at 11.4, so they're saying 15 billion. There's upside there if it goes up, but man, that chart, scary stuff. Stay tuned, folks. We'll be coming back with our man, Kevin Hinks from TD Ameritrade Network. We'll be right back after the break. VistaGold owns and operates the largest undeveloped gold project in Australia, the Mount Todd Gold Project. VistaGold just completed their feasibility study, resulting in a 7 million-ounce gold reserve. VistaGold has all major permits approved and has retained CIBC capital market assistance in evaluating alternatives and in completing an accretive transaction. VistaGold trades on the NYSE American and TSX under the ticker symbol VGC. VistaGold executing a strategy to create shareholder value. Everything in the universe is governed by the Fibonacci sequence. This mathematical principle is responsible for everything from the most aesthetically pleasing artwork to patterns in the stock market. To stay on top of stock patterns you can take advantage of, sign up for the Fibonacci 24-7 newsletter at tfnn.com. When you subscribe, you'll get a weekly report from veteran day trader Larry Pezzavento on stocks you need to pay attention to, and you can trust Larry's analysis. After all, he's got 45 years experience as a day trader. Larry will also provide daily charts, videos, and data on the key markets that he's tracking. Expect notifications from Larry on market movement you need to act on at any time. First-time subscribers also get a 30-day money back guarantee. If you're not satisfied, let us know and you'll get a full refund within 30 days of signing up. Subscribe to the Fibonacci 24-7 newsletter today, tfnn.com, educating investors. Steve Rhodes started his trading career as a student almost 20 years ago and the student has now become the master. Steve won the prestigious Timer of the Year award in 2018 and barely missed that mark again in 2019, finishing at number two for the year, an amazing accomplishment. Steve Rhodes is committed to sharing his techniques and knowledge with anyone who wants to learn and he shares his vast amount of trading knowledge every day in his Mastering Probability newsletter. Steve's award-winning newsletter, Mastering Probability is delivered every trading day with updates throughout the afternoon. Sign up for Steve's Market Newsletter, Mastering Probability and you'll receive access to seven of Steve's educational webinars absolutely free. At TFNN, all our newsletters come with a 30-day money back guarantee so you have absolutely nothing to worry about. Visit tfnn.com and try Mastering Probability 30 days risk-free today. TFNN, educating investors. TFNN has launched the Tiger's End, hosted at Discord. TFNN has been educating traders for more than 20 years with live programming hosted by a variety of professional traders during market hours, the Tiger's End, available to all tigers and tigeresses for just $1 for the year. There's no catch or added costs when you join our community of traders. Sign up today and become a part of this educational community of traders. Just visit the front page of tfnn.com. Back folks, we got the SMPs, negative by 11 points right now. You're looking at Dow futures, negative by 94. You have the Nasdaq 100, negative by 28. That's just about a quarter percent. Let's jump over to our man, Kevin Hinks. Every trading day folks at 12 noon Eastern time, fast market from the TD Ameritrade Network right here on Tiger TV, your host, Kevin Hinks, Tom White. They break down the day's market action folks. They walk you through what's going on in the market. They got some great guests. They walk you through hypothetical trade setups. If you wanna learn more about options, defined risk, even if you're not trading them, understanding how they work, the volatility, the premium, how it's priced in. It's an education every hour folks. Check it out, Kevin Hinks. Good morning. Good morning, Tommy or Brian. That's right. It's all about the strategies that we teach on fast market. We cover individual names and we look at potential paper money trades in those names, but it's really the strategies that we hope to teach people. So they have that menu when they think of a range bound look in a stock or a big move both up or down. That's what we've been talking about all week. It's the strategies, Tommy, giving our viewers that menu of choices to make. Kevin, I've learned so much from your show over the years, man. I appreciate it. I tell my friends about it and folks, I know they're an advertiser. I always say I know I'm biased, but I would be telling it to people anyway, man, because the education you guys put out, Kevin, and you know it, man, and we're digressing a bit. We'll get into the market, but years ago, man, I tell people these options courses in particular so difficult to understand how they work, how everything is related. What you guys talk about, theta, delta, all of that stuff, so thousands of dollars, folks, and you get that education every single day, man, right here at 12 o'clock with Kevin and Tom. And with that, Kevin, we got quite a main event tomorrow morning with a jobs number. We got initial claims up a little bit today that helped the market a little bit. I'm hearing a lot, whether I'm talking about analysts out there, bad news might be good news. You talked about it yesterday, so are we looking for some bad news tomorrow from non-farm payrolls from September? Well, it's counterintuitive, isn't it, Tom, to if you want stocks to go higher, you need the economic data to come in soft or less powerful than it has been in the past. So you got three economic data points so far in the labor market this week. Jolt stated that came in weaker than expected, stocks like that. That fueled Tuesday's rally. Then yesterday, we got the ADP employment report that's private payrolls, came in slightly higher than expected. Market really didn't like that so much, but that 208,000, the expectations for private payrolls tomorrow are 280,000. So the consensus for payrolls, 250,000 jobs at 3.7% unemployment rate, Tommy. In terms of wages, the inflation data that we get in this report, 0.3 on the month over month and 5.1% in the year over year. So those numbers and the expectations built in those numbers are what will fuel trading tomorrow. Could they be more relief? Yes, there could be, but if this market comes in strong, that implies that the Fed will have to stay on task and keep the pressure on in terms of interest rate, Tommy. With all the data, with all the moves that the Fed has done, we need some of that, those higher interest are hitting the overall economy, Tommy. That's what the market's looking for. And folks, that's why you gotta watch Fast Market, because Kevin, that was an action-packed few minutes of information, man. I appreciate all that stuff and boy, it's gonna happen tomorrow at 8.30. Talking about yields, right? Which obviously come into the equation tomorrow. What do you think of the general volatility right now going on almost across the board, man? I pull up the 10-year, right? The 30-year, my goodness. What do you just think of that? Because that to me points to a very not unstable market, but boy, you talk about a volatile equity market. When you have yields, they're so volatile right now in terms of the price action. The move down from August from 122 to 110, and then even the bounce you get from 110.19 to almost 114 over the period of what? Three, four, five days. Yeah, Tommy, there was a time when me and your father were younger, when we wore younger clothes, when our pants had pleats in them, that you used to go to the bond market to escape volatility. Now bonds and nodes have become some of the more volatile trades out there. So yeah, they're moving all over the board. Interest rates have become such in focus right now, and the U.S. dollar currencies, those are what are driving the market right now. I've said this before on your show, Tommy, three things, watch the dollar, watch yields, and watch Crudeau. Those three things are driving this market. Now, OPEC Plus didn't do any favors to the U.S. economy, what they did yesterday. So in terms of the supply side of the ledger, but you still got the U.S. dollar, and you still got yields, and those are what are driving this market right now, Tommy, both good and bad. And the moves, I was jumping through charts on the thinkorswim platform as you were talking, man, whether it was on just the past 12 months, whether I was pulling up a three-year chart, a five-year yields, Crude, the dollar index, all of them, just mammoth moves in those markets, obviously impacting our markets. With that in mind, Kevin, I know we got a lot to talk about today with tomorrow's main event, but what are you guys talking about coming up on Fast Market at 12 today? We'll cover Peloton, we'll cover Pinterest, and like I said, Tommy, this is when we do things. We try to stay with the names that are out there in the news. So I'm sure we'll look at social media. We haven't decided the final names yet, but social media will be at focus today with the Goldman Sachs upgrading Pinterest. So a lot of good choices as we're in this time between earning season. Boy, and those are a couple of charts, man, as well. Peloton, we all know the story there. I think 17109 down to 849, they're in the news. This morning, and even Pinterest, man, which I bought some stuff off of Pinterest, even up to 90 bucks, 24, but getting a lift this morning, pushing almost 26 in the pre-market. Kevin, we appreciate you taking the time, as always, man. We appreciate the education every day on Fast Market. We don't talk to you tomorrow, and as I love saying, man, because we got so much news recently, we're gonna know a lot more when I talk to you on Tuesday than we do right now, I think, about this market, and when we get that number tomorrow, man, we look forward to the show at 12, Kevin. Have a great weekend, man. Thanks for having me on, Tommy. Have a great weekend. Always pleasure. Folks, check it out. I have learned so much from their program, the way they walk you through it. The best way to learn, folks, is by doing something, okay? So that's when they set up those trades, you're able to see, this is their market bias, this is their perception of what they think is gonna happen in the market. This is how you might be able to profit in the best way possible with your market perception of what you think is gonna happen, right? They're not gonna be able to teach you the market opinions of whether things are gonna go up or down, but many of us have those perceptions, right? And then just figuring out the best way to profit from them using options, whether you're buying volatility, you're selling volatility, what's your duration, all of that outstanding show, and with volatility, the way it's moving right now, man, that is a time when options, one way or another. We zoom in on the VIX, right? Quite a little pullback, man. We got a spike. I gotta get the number up here on the chart. 3488 seems to fit in line with some of the prior spikes we've had on the VIX. This is just going back to January 1st. We hit almost 39, almost 38, almost 37, 35, and then 35 again. We've trailed off a bit. And you see, once we've gotten those peaks prior, and we had a nice peak there for six days, a pretty sustained peak. You see when we've had them before, they've been a little bit longer, they've been a little bit less, but maybe we trail off. And not sure that that's gonna be accurate in terms of reflecting where the Fed goes, but we get more data tomorrow, the market will react and we'll see where we go. That jobs number was a big one. Cannot did I, missing by a million jobs on the jolts openings, because that's what's gonna matter, unfortunately, folks. It's all about jobs, you know? The economy, jobs, right? What's the Fed mandate? Full employment, jobs, not stock market, jobs. Full employment and price stability. We have full employment. Kevin talked about those numbers. A great wrap-up of what's expected tomorrow, 3.7%. That's full employment, folks. So keep your eye on CPI, those wages tomorrow. Stay tuned, we'll be right back for the open. Time of booming inflation. We're purchasing powers eroded. There's no better place to protect your harder and money than in gold. Vista Gold's flagship asset is the Mount Todd Gold Project in the Northern Territory of Australia. This is Australia's largest undeveloped gold project. We are talking a world-class gold project in a tier one mining district. This is a large-scale, low-cost project with significant existing infrastructure in a politically safe and friendly mining jurisdiction. Vista Gold just completed the Mount Todd Feasibility Study, which resulted in a 7 million-ounce gold reserve in a 16-year mine life. All of this combined with the approvals of all major operational, as well as environmental permits. This distinguishes Mount Todd as an attractive, diverse pod, ready-development stage gold project. Vista Gold trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol VGZ. TFNN is excited about our new software charting program, the Art of Timing the Trade Charts in collaboration with Tom O'Brien and using his best-selling book, The Art of Timing the Trade, Your Ultimate Trading Mastery System. David White has programmed an outstanding piece of software that will complement any trader's methodology. Using this first-of-its-kind program, the Art of Timing the Trade Charts allows you to scan thousands of stocks for Fibonacci formation setups, including guardleaf, ABCs, butterflies, and much more. The Art of Timing the Trade Charts is designed to help you when scouring the markets for stocks just beginning to form the trading patterns that many investors spend days, weeks, or even months searching to find. And right now, we're offering licenses available at only $79 a month. We are so confident that you're gonna love this new charting software that will even give you a 30-day, unconditional money-back guarantee. Don't miss out on this incredible new piece of software. Get your copy of the Art of Timing the Trade Charts today by visiting TFNN.com. Sharpening your skills as an investor is like getting better at playing a musical instrument. You have to practice, sure, but you also need excellent instruction from experts. At TFNN, you'll get advice and guidance from the authority and technical market analysis. And it's not just dry, tedious text, either. TFNN airs live financial content streamed live on TFNN.com and TFNN's YouTube channel with Tiger TV, live every market day from 8.30 a.m. to 4.00 p.m. Eastern for free. Each host is an experienced trader and gives their take on the market while taking calls and questions live from around the world. From the moment the market opens until the closing bell sounds, Tiger TV has eight different shows with expert hosts to help you make the right moves with your money. Watch online at TFNN.com or on TFNN's YouTube channel and become the investor you were born to be, TFNN. Educating investors. This segment is brought to you by Think or Swim. For more information, just click the Think or Swim banner on the front page of TFNN.com. Welcome back, folks. We got markets open. You're looking at an S&P negative by about 15 points trailing off a bit. NASDAQ 100, negative by 31. We got the Dow off 150 right now, jumping around to some of the commodities. Crude, holding pretty steady near 88 bucks. We're at 87.66. Yeah, as Kevin put it, man, you keep your eye, dollar index, yields, and crude. Okay? Dollar index, yields? Probably a little helpful. We've had a little bit of a pullback, but crude, keep your eye on it, man, because that could be a thorn in the side of inflation if we start to get a rise. And I would argue, folks, the crude sitting right now we were almost a year ago, considering what's going on during that time, considering Russia and what's going on there. If you last October, okay, said this is what I think is gonna happen on a geopolitical scale with Russia, with Ukraine, with energy, with energy prices. What do you think crude's gonna be higher or lower in a year? I said, ah, it'll probably be the same, like 85 bucks. You know, why not, right? I said, man, that's a lot of risk. What happens? What about everything going on? You get the point, right? 85 bucks, a lot of risk. We've spent a lot of time over that number. Very hard press to see it pulling back. Guess what the X factor we'll call it is there though. You get a real recession. You get China pushing the limits with zero COVID policy, shutting around cities with 20 million people. Yeah, that'll put a weakening in the demand of crude and these markets catching a little bit of a bid on the open. Let's jump back and put it on a five minute. And there's your pop at 9.30, up to almost 37.90. And yeah, I would be skeptical, folks, of any bounces in this market, man, until we really get a shift in the data.  Feds, Bostic and daily double team fails to quash 2023 rate cut bets, right? Now, the Fed has been pretty strong, I think, saying that they will hold this for long if they have to. Folks, it's October 6th. 2023 is gonna be here before you know it. Do you think inflation is gonna be considerably lower to the three or 4% mark in any time soon? That's really tough for me to get a hold of, man. With where we are, right? Where rents are, remember, rents, okay? I think rents are almost one third of inflation. I think there are 40% of the core inflation number, rents. What's going on with mortgage prices? Those could decrease, but houses are never going back on the market. Rents are gonna be a persistent problem. They're gonna lag for CPI numbers for a year or two, and they have a dramatic impact. So those CPI numbers are gonna be pushing heavy numbers.  It's a delayed reaction, right? It's gonna say that those will come down as the market catches up and that inflation will be tamed if that is the driving force. But all it's gonna be doing is explaining away high inflationary prints. And I'm not sure the Fed's gonna be willing to start cutting in 2023 while explaining that the influences upon inflation numbers are gonna go away soon because they're lagging. That sounds like almost a transitory argument, right? Getting the high prints, getting the prints on CPI, on core CPI, and that's not even talking about crude, man. What if crude starts spiking at the same time? The rent persists, right? Rate cuts anywhere in 2023 is tough, anywhere close to it. I mean, so let's get to, I think I made my point. Eurodollar futures showed reduced expectations Wednesday for a Fed interest rate cuts in 2023, but still price in around one quarter point move and at least two more in 2024. So there's still pricing in a cut of one cut, one quarter point in 2023, but then two more in 2024. What's going on with the economy if we have that type of cutting? That would be very worrisome, folks, okay? Because it's very difficult for me to imagine inflation crashing down. The jolts number, that's a big one. Pay attention to those jobs numbers, pay attention to the unemployment rate tomorrow if we somehow have a big miss on the jobs rent. The market will love that as crazy as it is because it's a far cry to see how these inflation numbers tame. If we start seeing jobs numbers miss to a dramatic fashion and unemployment rising, that might do it, man. Not sure that's gonna be good for the economy, but on the long haul, gotta have price to stability, man. Everything else is almost worthless if you got no price stability, man. What is the point of investing? What is the point of saving, right? If you have no price stability, it's core to everything we do. I think Chairman Powell knows he blew it and they were late to the party, and that's why the market seems to keep getting ahead of itself, right? I mean, this whole run from June to August was completely misplaced, right? Somehow the market tricked itself into thinking that the Fed was willing to pause, the Fed was willing to back down, and all of the chairman said was we're gonna be data dependent. Well, here we are back right when he said that, and we got a big data point tomorrow. We'll see where we go. All right, let's jump around to what else I have talking about this morning. How about Porsche? Overtaking the parent company Volkswagen, man. Now, this one's interesting, almost Tesla-like when you talk about the amount of deliveries. Porsche overtakes parent Volkswagen as Europe's most valuable automaker. That number, Porsche was up 3.1%, 90.68 euros. That's less dollars because of parity now. Giving it a market value of 82.7, excuse me. Okay, they were trading at 90 euros, their stock, which gives an evaluation of 81.5 billion dollars, or 82.7 billion euros. So just ahead of Volkswagen, and there's the chart for the spike that they've got. Porsche's current market cap accelerating higher on their IPO. Now, how many cars do they make? Oh, come on, it's in here, I just read it. Here we go. Volkswagen sells 10 million vehicles in a typical year. Porsche sells 300,000. Yeah, 33 times the size of the company and somehow Volkswagen has them edged. Excuse me, Porsche has them edged and Volkswagen is doing some great things, man. That stock has been benefiting from their transition to electric. Maybe there's a little arbitrage opportunity there with Porsche getting a little bit ahead of itself, selling 300,000 vehicles. I'm sure they're making more margins than Volkswagen is on their vehicles. But if he asked me which company I'd probably want to buy, I'd probably want Volkswagen versus Porsche, even though never owned a Porsche, but those Porsches can't deny. Stylish vehicles, German sports car maker. All right, what else do we have pulled up here to talk about? Talked about the Fed. Gas prices in Florida, we'll jump around a little bit. So this one, if you're looking to load up on gas, man, do it in the month of October in Florida. So you have a state suspending 25.3 cents per gallon. That's the tax on a gallon of gas in the state of Florida and it is suspended. The gas prices as you get a tax holiday went into effect. That is from the month of October. So if you plan on stocking up, you got a gas tank that you keep in the garage or something like that. You got a generator stock up on that gas. Yeah, and the other one, all right, we'll do a little bit of tease, because I wanna, well, now we're gonna talk a little bit when we come back folks, just about health. Every 2,000 steps a day could help you keep premature death at bay. It's a stock show, this is a finance show, but that seems like something everybody should learn about. And the numbers folks, I like numbers, I like science, I like statistics, they don't lie. We'll talk a little bit about those numbers when we come back. You should not go away on that commercial break because you're gonna wanna hear the numbers. A huge study of people, not rocket science folks, movement is healthy. Getting your body to move on a daily basis to some degree, healthy for your body. Shocking data, right? I know, but it's something we all need to hear sometimes. S&P's negative by three, but we got the NASDAQ 100. Now in the positive, we got the Russell. In the positive, we got crude. At 87.78, stay tuned folks, we'll be talking a little bit of walking when we come back real briefly. You might think that if you want to be successful at trading in the stock market, you're going to need a crystal ball. After all, it's impossible to predict the future, right? Like any endeavor in life, before you decide it's impossible, get some advice from the experts. You might find that it's not so impossible after all. For daily market overviews that give you direction on the key indices, selective stocks and commodities, subscribe to the opening call newsletter at tfnn.com. The opening call newsletter is written by Basil Chapman, creator of the trading methodology known as the Chapman Wave. The Chapman Wave up-down sequence gives you an edge in identifying price turns, finding the peaks and valleys in stock prices.  First-time subscribers also get a 30-day money-back guarantee. If you're not satisfied, let us know and you'll get a full refund within 30 days of signing up. tfnn.com, educating investors. The technology around us is changing every day. With so much happening, it can seem impossible to keep up with all the information. David White's investment newsletter, the technology insider, is designed to give you all the information you need to understand the technology that shapes today's markets and tomorrow's future. David White has made his living staying on the cutting edge of technology. His weekly newsletter will give you specific recommendations for valued tech stocks, as well as entry prices, target prices, and stops to set for each trade. Dave delivers his weekly newsletters every Friday with updates throughout the week. You can get the technology insider at tfnn.com for only $37.50. Sign up for David's newsletter, the technology insider, and get an inside look at everything the technology sector has to offer. Try at risk-free today with our 30-day money-back guarantee. tfnn, educating investors. Will the S&P 500 continue to climb for bold trades on U.S. large cap stocks in either direction, trade SPXL, SPUU, or SPXS, Directions Daily, S&P 500, Bull and Bear, Leveraged ETFs, Direction Leveraged ETFs. An investor should carefully consider a fund's investment objective, risks, charges, and expenses before investing. A fund's prospectus and summary prospectus contain this and other information about direction shares. To obtain a fund's prospectus and summary prospectus, call<PHONE_NUMBER> or visit Direction Investments.com. A fund's prospectus and summary prospectus should be read carefully before investing. An investment in the funds is subject to risk, including the possible loss of principal. The funds are designed to be utilized only by sophisticated investors such as traders and active investors. Distributor, Four-Side Fund Services, LLC. This program is brought to you by Vista Gold, traded on the NYSE American and TSX under the symbol VGZ. Come back, folks. You can't keep a good bounce down the S&Ps right now. All markets positive as we got quite a climb, man. From where we were at six in the morning, when I got up this morning, you're trading up 33 points right now, approaching 1% pop, almost back to the highs we had pre-market. There's an acceleration for you. That's from the open, folks. 930, we're up about 25 points right now in this S&P Nasdaq 100. You just popped 100 points. 11,693, right near the highs we got overnight. Dow right now up 30 points. We get the Russell up by 11 points. Look at the acceleration of the Russell, pushing the highs of yesterday's close, 1782.  I'm not lying, all right? That doesn't even talk about it, but you feel the benefits of feeling good, feeling healthy, having some clarity, okay? Sitting in front of your desk, and maybe it's necessary, depending on how you're trading during market hours, but you can do many things. You can get a walking treadmill with a standing desk to get a little bit of activity. There are ways now that you can do it. No matter what, if it's a priority, you can make it happen, and you read stuff like this, and you're like, man, why am I not spending every day doing at least 10,000 steps a day? We'll start with 2,000. Every 2,000 steps a day could help keep premature death at bay. It rhymes too, lovely headline. 2,000 steps, folks, about one mile is what it is. If you're walking a mile, you're walking about three miles an hour, maybe that takes you 20 minutes, right? People jog a mile, maybe they jog it in 10 minutes, 12 minutes, something like that. But walking it, depending on your speed, 18 minutes, if you're going a little faster than three miles an hour, if you're going four miles an hour, it takes you 15 minutes, okay? But 15 minutes doing four miles an hour, even 20 minutes. Think about the time throughout your day. You can find 20 minutes if you need to, folks. Everybody can find it, because at a minimum, you could wake up 20 minutes earlier, and I guarantee you'd be okay. Guarantee it, and you'd get some time in there for exercise and read the numbers we're talking about here. For every 2,000 steps you take each day, your risk of premature death may fall by eight to 11%. That's for every 2,000 steps, okay? You got two studies here, accumulating up to roughly 10,000 steps a day. So that's about four to five miles. That's what it says in here, and I would agree with that number. I have an Apple watch. I use Strava, which I started using, which is an app that tracks your movement. Now, Apple has great tracking within theirs. I'm sure Android does as well. But I use an Apple watch. It ties into the app Strava that tracks. I used to bike a lot more than I do. Now I just go walking and jogging. I want to get back into biking. It's good for your joints. But we're talking about, so check it out, was linked to a reduction in the occurrence of cardiovascular disease, including heart disease, stroke, and heart failure, 13 types of cancer, and dementia. The studies involved almost 79,000 participants. That's the type of study I like folks, a large sample size, all middle age and older, who wore a device on their wrist to measure physical activity and whose health was monitored for a median of seven years. 79,000 people for seven years wearing tracking devices following it. They found that the health benefits can also be achieved by taking fewer steps. For instance, walking about 9,800 steps a day was found to lower risk of dementia by about 50%, but dementia risk was cut by 25% for those who walked as few as 3,800, right? So there's still benefit to any level, but the more you do it, the more benefit it is. It makes so much sense folks, but get out and walk. That's it. That's all you gotta do, okay? Now, if you can get your heart rate going a little bit more, and if it's your safe, listen, I'm not a doctor obviously, okay? If you haven't done this in a while, be careful. Getting your heart rate up so much, okay? But walking at a faster pace or upping the attendance intensity by power walking, for example, was found to have health benefits too with intensity amplifying the results. Walking at a faster pace was linked to a lower risk for dementia, heart disease, cancer, and early death. I'm a fan of all of those things. You should be too. Beyond the benefit accrued for the number of daily steps. So yeah, increase things a little bit. Folks, we've heard it all, but look at the numbers, man. Find the time in the day if you can. I need to find more time in my day. I'm speaking to myself at the same time, okay? But do you have like 30 minutes a day to go walking? Go do it, because you can't deny the benefits, man. We're all in the market, right? We like probabilities. You got one body, folks, and you got one probability, okay, and those numbers don't lie, man. 2,000 steps a day dropping all of those numbers. So get out there, just walk. That's it, and if you feel good enough, power walk, up the ante a little bit. All right, let's get back to the market. S&Ps climbing up by nine, let's jump around to some of the fang stocks. We'll kick it off with Amazon. Basically flat this morning, little volatility yesterday. We'll jump over to the big dog, Apple. Apple right now, up by about half a percent. Let's jump over to Google shares. Google trading positive, there's a spike for you. Up about nine-tenths percent. Microsoft shares up by two-tenths percent. We jump over to Twitter. The Twitter saga, backing off a bit from the price, up to 52.30 on that acceleration yesterday, we're down 1.4 percent today. Looks like some of the funders of that deal backing out. They were negotiating potentially for a lower price point. Twitter was not a fan of that. There's still some issues to work out here, folks, and when Elon's involved, you better believe that there are some issues, but I imagine he does not want to go in front of discovery, which was supposed to happen today and tomorrow, I believe, if things are going forward, so not a coincidence, the timing of him saying, you know what, fine, we'll buy it for $44 billion if I don't have to go under discovery. He's got too much going on with too many different companies, and it sounds like he's got too much going on with his personal life as well at times for his text and so forth to be coming out during discovery, which they make for something like that when you're talking about tens of billions of dollars at stake. We jump over to Tesla. Tesla's been getting punished recently since that news came out Tuesday. There was when they announced that, well, where Elon announced, you know what I say, they announced, that's the problem being a Tesla showholder, they didn't announce anything. Elon announced he was buying Twitter and Tesla traded from 255 to 235 over a period of time that we've had in the market accelerating. Now, Tesla had some big news to start the week off, missing deliveries, so that was bringing this thing lower, but today you're up by about 1% on Tesla shares. Let's see how yields, the dollar will jump around right now. Look at that, continuing to drop right now. You're talking about yields, where are we at? We're approaching 3.8%, just like that, 112 off two full points from where you were Tuesday. Look at that. I mean, we got two full points to the upside and two full points right to the backside, man. You take a look at the daily, lower price is coming at you, man. Lower price, higher yield, the 10 year, back above 3.8% right now. The 30 year, yeah, backing off by about nine ticks, giving up most of the gain it had over the last couple of days, a few days, really Monday's action, I guess, on the 30 year. Up to 129, back to 126.17. Let's jump over to the dollar index. Look at the dollar, continuing to run, man. Pushing 112, we're at 111 overnight. Yeah, you're at 112, just like that. If I was gonna get some euros, folks, you're traveling to Europe, I would get some now, but I wouldn't get them all. That's what I would do, because I suspect that this thing's got lower prices coming at you, even in the near term. The Fed's not done yet, man, and we're at 3.7%. So I know it seems like the economy's struggling when you see the market volatility that you see, but we're still at 3.7%, folks, and we got inflation at 8%, right? And I did my spiel with rent, with crude, but pay attention, man, because those numbers are not coming back down. The headline number, the core number, excuse me, not coming back down to where they need to be to get cuts anytime soon, unless we get some dramatic drop off, man. If we get unemployment hitting 4.5%, 5%, something like that, then yeah, I think they'd be able to explain away rent, possibly lifting the inflation numbers, but I don't see that happening too quickly either. We're gonna find out some of it tomorrow, folks, stay tuned. One more segment, we'll be right back. TFNN has just launched their new trading room, the Tiger's Den, hosted at Discord. TFNN has been educating traders for more than 20 years with live programming hosted by a variety of professional traders during market hours, and now they are expanding their reach with the Tiger's Den, available to all Tigers and Tigresses for just $1 for the year. There's no catch or added costs when you join our community of traders. In the Tiger's Den, you can look over the shoulders of Tom O'Brien and the other TFNN hosts while they analyze charts during their live Tiger TV programs and join an interactive trading community with hundreds of members exchanging ideas, interact with other Tigers and Tigresses as they share trading ideas, news analysis, and discuss the market action all trading day, even at night and on the weekends. The Tiger's Den at Discord is accessible on mobile or tablets as well, so it's always at your reach. To sign up today and become a part of this educational community of traders, just visit the front page of TFNN.com. You might think that if you want to be successful at trading in the stock market, you're going to need a crystal ball. After all, it's impossible to predict the future, right? Like any endeavor in life, before you decide it's impossible, get some advice from the experts. You might find that it's not so impossible after all. For daily market overviews that give you direction on the key indices, selective stocks, and commodities, subscribe to the opening call newsletter at TFNN.com. The opening call newsletter is written by Basil Chapman, creator of the trading methodology known as the Chapman Wave. The Chapman Wave up-down sequence gives you an edge in identifying price turns. Finding the peaks and valleys in stock prices.  First-time subscribers also get a 30-day money-back guarantee. If you're not satisfied, let us know and you'll get a full refund within 30 days of signing up. TFNN.com, educating investors. Everything in the universe is governed by the Fibonacci sequence. This mathematical principle is responsible for everything from the most aesthetically pleasing artwork to patterns in the stock market. To stay on top of stock patterns you can take advantage of, sign up for the Fibonacci 24-7 newsletter at TFNN.com. When you subscribe, you'll get a weekly report from Veteran Day Trader Larry Pezzavento on stocks you need to pay attention to and you can trust Larry's analysis. After all, he's got 45 years experience as a day trader. Larry will also provide daily charts, videos, and data on the key markets that he's tracking. Expect notifications from Larry on market movement you need to act on at any time. First-time subscribers also get a 30-day money-back guarantee. If you're not satisfied, let us know and you'll get a full refund within 30 days of signing up. Subscribe to the Fibonacci 24-7 newsletter today. TFNN.com, educating investors. This segment is brought to you by Think or Swim. For more information, just click the Think or Swim banner. On the front page of TFNN.com. Welcome back, folks. We have the S&Ps up about 10 points right now. Back above 3,800. I have this on an hourly chart. We're going back to the highs of September 13th. Again, that was the CPI print that was super hot. Markets accelerate lower. We get Fed speak from there. Fed decision, I should say. Accelerates into 35, 71. Keep your eye on it though. 3,800, folks. It's just about a 3, 8, 2. All we've done is chop around that area whether you were up there overnight last night. That's also where you finish Tuesday's action. 3,802 right now with the S&Ps and the NASDAQ 100. Pretty similar chart, man. From 13,000, we'll call it, down to about 10,900. And we've backed up right to the 3, 8, 2. You make it through the 3, 8, 2, 12,200 maybe. Looking at the next spot that you could see a rise to. I don't know if they see that happening though right now, folks, ahead of the jobs number tomorrow. All right, jumping around to what else we have. Talking about energy. Talking about the UK. Boy, Europe, the UK. What's going to happen this winter, man? I think we're seeing the first glimpses of it. The UK grid warns of winter power cuts and a tight energy market. Gastaman forecast arrives with shortage of power imports in the grid. See, he's tighter power system margin this winter. Not surprising stuff, but they warn that some customers face potential power cuts on cold, calm days as the country heads into winter with the smallest margin of power backup supplies in seven years. That is a tough deal going on over there, folks, no matter what. And they are going to be dealing with some issues. And unfortunately, that's probably going to play into cost issues over there that matter right now. What's inflation and matter for the ability to those central banks to get things under control. That's why you're seeing so much dollar strength, man. And very difficult to imagine that changing anytime soon for the reasons we've been stating. And that's an hourly chart in the dollar index. And what we do, man, from 107.68 up to 114.77. And just like that though, we've caught a little bit of a bounce with the dollar pushing 112 right now. Lots of volatility in these markets, folks. S&Ps back to flat, the Dow slightly in the red, Nasdaq 100 slightly in the green. Thanks so much for starting your trading day off with me. We got live programming all day, folks. Basil Chapman with the Tiger Technicians hours next. Then we get our man, Steve Rhodes, with the traders edge at 11, fast market at 12.  We got our man, Larry Pezzavento, live at one o'clock, Dave White at two, Tom O'Brien, my dad, live from three to four. Thanks so much, folks. I'll see you tomorrow morning at nine o'clock in the morning and we'll know a lot more then than we do right now. Have a great day, folks. Stay tuned for Basil.


Hey y'all, it's Timmy with Collard Valley Cooks. Today, I made my favorite cake layers in the world, God's Send Cake Layers that I come up with and I decided to do a coconut cake with them for Easter. This is going to be called the God's Send Coconut Cake. Let's get started. You made my God's Send Cake before. You know what I'm talking about, it being too wet. It looked how nice and the way the texture is with this. So it would make good cupcakes and everything else. I add in that extra cup of flour in there. So if you've got the old recipe written down, make sure you replace it with my new one. Woo! Okay, so we have three eggs in our mixer. We're gonna start out with those and they're at room temperature and we're gonna start mixing up our cake. Throw in three quarter cups of vegetable oil. This is corn oil and a crushed pineapple, juice and all, the mashed banana. So I'm just throwing in three large bananas. Of course, they're really, really right. You wanna use ripe bananas. They got some bad places on, take it all. So I'm gonna open up another banana and throw in about another half of a banana to make up the difference. The coconut comes in and many ingredients go in. So we're gonna add in a teaspoon of vanilla. You do not get cake mix. It already says it has pudding in them. I think those are Pilsbury and Dunkin' Hines. Make sure they're not a pudding in the mix, cake mix. Just the strawberry Dunkin' Hines is great. Extra cup of flour and this is self-rising flour. If all you have is plain flour, then add a little baking powder and soda to it and use the over mix it. Once it goes in there, you don't need to mix over a couple of minutes. So we're gonna go ahead and throw in a half cup of flaked coconut, have a chocolate con. Don't take it longer to get done than normal cake.  A lot of good so that it flips out easy. It's got proof in it. Make sure that you don't use two eight inch layers because this is a lot of batter. So if you're going to use two cake layers through the nine inch instead of the eight inch, I'm using three eights. You can use three nines as a way off. You don't mind them being thin. When me and Chris were young, it was never a time that I didn't have a fresh cake made. And now that we're in this time where there's a pandemic and we're all stuck in the house, I am sure I will definitely have something sweet made all the time. I'm gonna get a toothpick where it'll stick in there so if we think they're done, looks great to me. I'm taking them out. You can see how they pulled away from the sides a little bit. And when you press them, they should kind of sponge back for you. And I always use the toothpick method as well. Now, like I said, if you really want a rich cake, you can put cream cheese on it. But this is how I think it would be best served. And that is using whipping cream and coconut. And wouldn't it be like the coconut cakes that's got all these goodies on the inside for a change instead of just plain coconut? So we'll put a little bit of coconut in between the layers. Now this is a tall cake because it is a full cake mix with another cup of flour. So keep that in mind. If you don't want it this tall, then make nine inch flavors. The extra on the top and all over it. Now it's almost Easter. So for Easter, you could color your coconut green and put Easter eggs on the top. It'd be really pretty. Or you can just do it like what I'm doing it now.  This is a recipe that they're not gonna have had somewhere else, something really different. But really delicious at the same time. Normally I do that over a bowl. I guess I should have over some parchment and then you can pick it up and stack it back on there. Make sure you use the whole bag. Now we used a half a cup of coconut in the cake layers. This is a 14 ounce package of baker's coconut. So you'll wind up using it all to make sure that, I mean, you know, not wasting any of it.  So stand back and look. And if you got some holes, fill them in. I did freeze these layers just for about an hour before I asked them. It's a smart thing to do, y'all. Yummy. But I'm gonna cut out one that I'll make a picture with. The first one always makes a mess. You will not find a better cake than this. Everybody loves strawberries. Everybody loves bananas. It's kind of like a strawberry banana cake with coconut and pecans and pineapple. It's everything that I love in one cake. Does that look delicious or what? I couldn't wait for Chris to turn on the camera. Y'all already ate part of it. Let me just say this. If you made my God's sin cake before, this rendition is better. The cake is a lot more cakey. It's not so packed. And the first one that I made was a little bit too wet. This one's perfect, spot on. So that's what I like to do before I put a cookbook recipe in my cookbook, is make it absolutely perfect. And this is not a recipe that was somebody else's, so it took some altering until I got it just right. Let me just say that I'm gonna make this cake with coconut and cool whip for the rest of the time I make it. This is definitely going to be my new signature cake. It is absolutely the bomb. The bomb. But this cake really should be on everybody's table this Easter because it's beautiful. It's got everything delicious in it. Everybody will love it. If you are shut in right now and you can't get out and you've got the stuff to make it, please make this cake. If you don't have a strawberry cake mix, but you've got some strawberry gelatin, add a little gelatin to it and make this cake and enjoy it. We appreciate all of our viewers and we love you. Thanks for watching Color Valley Cooks, where we cook this one like Tammy did.


In this lesson, we are going to explore professional behaviors and communication. By the end of this lesson, you will be able to define professionalism, evaluate the use of professional behaviors in a work setting, discuss professional communication, and utilize professional communication skills in an interaction. We are going to start our lesson by discussing what is professionalism. Professionalism simply is the conduct, aims, or qualities that characterize or mark a profession or a professional person. Why is professionalism so important? Well, the primary rationale for professionalism is to promote patient safety. It also allows for effective collaboration among the healthcare team. Healthcare is delivered by teams of professionals who need to communicate well, who need to respect the principles of honesty, respect for others, confidentiality, and responsibility for their actions. Further, it is through professional standards that a respectful workplace is fostered. It allows for critical self-reflection that healthcare professionals can use to ensure a welcoming environment. These qualities allow for an environment that is conducive to the best clinical care education and research. Professionalism is a powerful quality. It allows you to fulfill your role to the best of your ability. It helps you to impress and inspire others, and it gives you a deep sense of satisfaction and self-worth. So let's review some professional behaviors. Competence, as a professional, you get the job done and you get it done well. Your abilities match the requirements of your role, and you often produce results that exceed expectations. But you never plow on simply for the sake of appearances. Instead, your professionalism allows you to manage your own and others' expectations, and you know when to ask for support when necessary. Knowledge, professionalism involves developing detailed up-to-date knowledge, and this is often highly specialized. So at every stage of your career, strive to master your role and keep adding to what you know. Conscientiousness, professionalism involves being reliable, setting your own high standards and showing that you care about every aspect of your role. It's about being industrious and organized and holding yourself accountable for your thoughts, words and actions. Integrity, integrity is what keeps professional people true to their word. It also stops them compromising their values even if it means taking a harder road. Integrity is bound up with being honest to yourself and to the people you meet. Your beliefs and your behaviors are aligned and everyone can see that you're genuine. Respect, professionalism means being a role model for politeness and good manners to everyone, not just those you need to impress. What's more, you show that you truly respect other people by taking their needs into account and by helping to uphold their rights. Emotional intelligence, to be a true professional, you need to stay professional even under pressure. This takes strategies for managing your emotions plus a clear awareness of other people's feelings. In short, emotional intelligence is essential. Now, we'll discuss emotional intelligence further in another lesson. Confidence, well-founded confidence reassures and motivates other people, boosting your ability to influence and lead. It also pushes you to take on new challenges because you don't fear damaging your professional reputation if things go wrong. Professionalism makes you confident about what you're doing now but is always eager to do it better and to achieve more. As we mentioned before, professionalism is a powerful quality. So take some time and review an overview of professional behaviors in this video, professionalism. A significant part of professionalism is communication. Effective communication happens when health professionals communicate with each other, with patients and their families and with the broader community in a transparent, collaborative and responsible way. This type of communication promotes trusting, respectful relationships among patients, their families and healthcare providers. Mutual respect is essential for interprofessional communication. Respects helps foster a positive environment in which to set shared goals, create collaborative plans, make decisions and share responsibilities. Whether in a corporate environment or a healthcare facility, using professional communication skills is the key to success. At times, we are all faced with issues that need to be addressed and approaching the situation using professional communication is the key to a successful outcome. Professional communication encompasses written, oral, visual and digital communication within a workplace context. So let's explore some communication tips. The first one is cohesion and clarity. Good communication is much more than saying the right thing. It is about communicating messages clearly and concisely. Friendliness, a friendly tone will send a message that you are open to communication. Confidence, demonstrating confidence builds trust that you will follow through with any proposed actions. Empathy, providing empathy indicates respect for the other person's views and message. Respect, be respectful of others' thoughts and opinions. As we mentioned before, professional communication is the key to a successful outcome. So let's review a few more tips. Listening, do not listen to respond. Listen to understand the message that someone is sending. Consider open-mindedness. Enter the conversation without preconceived thoughts or an agenda. Try to reach a compromise when necessary. Consider your tone of voice. Keep your tone of voice neutral. When you start a conversation off with an aggressive stance or message, it may lead to a similar response from the person you are communicating with. Ask questions. Use open-ended questions and don't rush. Give the person you are talking with an opportunity to process what you have said and to formulate their answer. So try not to rush to respond. There are times when you encounter conflict in the workplace. Avoid responding in an unprofessional manner and try these techniques instead. Ask to move to a private area away from staff and patients so that you can continue the conversation. Now you can start the conversation by stating you would appreciate a professional discussion so you can talk about the issue. Know your audience before entering into a discussion. Speak in a professional and respectful manner. Know your goal. What is it you want to achieve from this conversation and stay focused on the immediate issue? Listen. Listen to understand the message, not to formulate a response. Leave emotions out of the conversation so remain objective and practice emotional intelligence. Be truthful and sincere. Stick to the facts of the issue. Be honest with yourself and the person that you're communicating with. Creating a bigger story to benefit yourself contributes to the drama that the issue could be causing. So don't make it worse. Speak softly and slowly and make eye contact. When you encounter a conflict, do not hold grudges. You are there to care for the patients and being part of the team will make this a more pleasant experience for all. If the conversation continues down the wrong path, you can ask to speak to a supervisor or a manager. Before this meeting, though, keep these communication tips in mind. Let's try a skills practice. Practice three communication skills on a friend or a colleague. Write a discussion post on what skills did you use? What was the person's response? How did the experience make you feel and what is your takeaway from this lesson? Don't forget to respond to one of your peers. You can locate the references and additional resources on this slide.


Girls with no fathers in the home have lower self-esteem.  But also women with low self-esteem are more promiscuous. No father, family's more likely to be victims of abuse, especially with single mothers. The more opportunities a child has to interact with biological father, the less likely they are to commit a crime or have contact with a juvenile justice system. Okay, another way to say that is men and women who are incarcerated, the population of the prisons, mostly encompass fatherless homes. Now here's something that no one else has mentioned, which I think is cool, and I don't really say this eloquently. If a man and wife raise a child, they're less likely to end up in jail, but they have the same statistical chance as children raised by just their father. So if we wanna keep children, adults out of prison, mother, father, or just father. Well, we don't wanna hear just father, so let's try to keep the families intact. I think that just seems, that just seems better.


Hello everyone, this is Alice Gao. In the previous videos, I constructed the decision network for the male pickup robot, then I calculated the expected utility for the robot for different states of the world, given that I determined the action that maximizes the expected utility of the robot. The calculation procedure doesn't look like any algorithm we've learned before. However, in this video, I want to show you that we can also solve this problem using the variable elimination algorithm that we've learned before. Let's take a look. Before we apply the variable elimination algorithm to our robot decision network, let's first simplify the network. In this network, we represented short and paths using two different decision nodes. But we can make these decisions at the same time. There is no order between the two. So we'll combine these two decision nodes into just one node. The domain of the combined node is the cross product of the domain of the two separate nodes. So used to be the domain of short is short and long, and the domain of paths is yes or no, wearing paths or not wearing paths. Now the domain for the new node would contain four values, short paths, short no paths, long paths and long no paths. We will also have to modify the conditional probability distribution for accident because now it should condition on this new variable which has four possible values. We also need to modify our utility function. Our utility function now is a function of two variables instead of a function of three variables. But let's not do those changes right now. Let's do those changes directly when we apply our variable elimination algorithm. What we have here is a single-stage decision network. That means we make one decision and then we'll observe the consequence of this decision. So how does it affect other random events that's going to happen in the world such as accident and also how do the random events and our decision affect our happiness? So that's how the two variables can affect our utility. Here is the variable elimination algorithm for a single-stage decision network. It's fairly simple. First of all, we want to prune all the nodes that are not ancestors of the utility node. The reason for this is that the utility node is only influenced by its ancestors. So if some node is not an ancestor of the utility node, it's irrelevant. It does not affect our happiness. So the first step just says let's prune all the irrelevant nodes. They don't affect our utility. Second, we will sum out all the chance nodes. These are sort of like the hidden variables in the variable elimination algorithm. We have to sum out all the random events that happen, sort of merge their effects together in order to determine how they affect our happiness, how they affect our utility. After that, we will have a single remaining factor. And using that factor, we will determine our maximum expected utility and the assignment that gives the maximum expected utility. So the assignment here would be the decision that we make. Given our combined decision nodes that would be the combination of the two decisions that we make that can maximize our expected utility. Let's go through this algorithm now and execute it. It's not going to take very long. It will only take two slides to explain most of this algorithm. First of all, we have to take our decision network and look at every table in this decision network. So by table, I'm referring to either the conditional probability distribution, for example, this one, or I'm referring to the utility function table. So either table, we have to look at all of these tables and for each table, we have to create a corresponding factor. So that's what I did here. The left factor is corresponding to the conditional probability distribution attached to the chance node accident. So for this, this is representing a conditional probability, right? It's saying that if we choose the short route, then there is a probability that an accident will occur. If we choose the long route, then accident will never occur. So that's how we came up with these numbers. For example, if we choose the short route, these first four cases are all relating to the short route, then the probability for an accident to occur is Q. And the probability for an accident to not happen is 1 minus Q. And then for the other possibility, if we choose the long route, then the probability for an accident to happen is zero. Here on the long route, an accident will never happen. And similarly, the probability for an accident to not happen is 1. This is how we realized here that we already incorporated the fact that we merged the two decision nodes. So we have this new decision node right here, which has a lot more possible values. So now it has four possible values instead of two in the domain of either variable. Similarly, we'll take the utility function and also convert it into a factor. Here you will realize that being a factor is such an abstract concept. So it can represent so many things. It can represent a joint distribution. It can represent a conditional distribution. And now it could also represent the utility function. Seems like as long as you can put something in the form of a table, a factor probably can represent it. So here for the right table, I basically took the utility function and move it here, except that I put all the numbers in the right place depending on the combination of values. So for example, the first value is when an accident happens, we choose a short route and we wear a pad. Our utility is two. Now that we have put everything into factors, then the first step of the algorithm tells us that we need to prune all the nodes that are not ancestors of the utility node. In our decision network, every node is an ancestor of the utility node. So we don't have to do anything for step one. Let's move on to step two. Step two says we will sum out all the chance nodes. Well, we only have one chance node in this decision network. So let's sum that out. We want to sum out accident and turns out both factor have accident in it. So in order to do that, we first have to multiply the two factors together and then sum out accident from the resulting factor. So on this slide here, first I'm showing you the result of multiplying the two factors together. This is exactly the same as how we multiply two factors in the variable elimination algorithm. Then after that, we sum out A from the resulting factor F2, which gives us F3 on the right. F3 should look very familiar to you, right? Because it's already in the form of the expected utilities that we calculated before, right? You can compare these expressions to the expressions we got before and they're exactly the same, right? So the variable elimination algorithm leads us to the same point right before we're supposed to make a decision. Now we have all the information we need to decide on which combination of actions is the best, right? So using the same numbers, we will reach the same decisions. For example, we can immediately prune this combination of decision because it's strictly dominated by the last one, right? Then depending on the value of Q, we will make different decisions. Since I already explained the decision-making process for the previous method, I'm not going to explain it here. There are two main reasons for showing you this example. The first one is to show to you that we can solve the problem using two different methods. One is to directly think about how to calculate the expected utility and make a decision based on that. And the other one is using this general and more generic algorithm called the variable elimination algorithm. The second reason is to show you that a decision network is not that much different from a Bayesian network. And the variable elimination algorithm still applies to a decision network. That's everything for this video. Thank you very much for watching and I will see you in the next video. Bye for now.