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- [00:00]
A
Foreign welcome to another edition of Macro Mondays. My name is Miguel Roosevelt. I'm your host, as usual and with me also, as usual, you Andreas. Welcome to the show.
- [00:19]
B
Thank you very much, Miguel.
- [00:21]
A
Andreas, it's, it's been an interesting week. We have a lot of ground to cover here. Still a lot of, a lot of stuff going on. Still a lot of volatility in equity markets. We'll look more into the inflation picture. I think a lot of indicators pointing in different directions. A lot of uncertainty as to where inflation is going, which could prove crucial for markets over the next decades. We'll talk a little bit about Yemen. We'll talk. Yeah, some trade ideas as well eventually in this show. Remember that this is a sneak peek into all the research and analysis that we do at Standard Research. We publish a lot of it on Real Vision with the Pro Macro tier. You gain access to loads more of that as well as even more shows from our side. We're sending this live on various platforms, real vision, YouTube, Twitter, what have you. So please post your questions and we'll bring them up during the show, as many as we can find time for essentially.
- [01:16]
B
Miguel, you promised that it will carry repercussions for the markets over the next decades, whether inflation. I guess 30 minutes is a little bit on the low side if we want to cover that much ground, but let's have a look at it.
- [01:30]
A
Sorry about that. Oh, I meant quarters, but yeah, yeah, absolutely. We are usually. That's actually a good way to. A good segue into to just mentioning that we are very, very short term often in our analysis here and the trading strategy is relatively short term at least. So that's what you should expect here. Also remember that while we try to be very actionable and obviously we have a huge analysis apparatus behind these ideas and positions that we suggest. Remember that our trade ideas might be.
- [02:01]
B
Summertime is maybe good.
- [02:02]
A
Summertime.
- [02:03]
B
It may be shit.
- [02:05]
A
Yeah, exactly. Very good to get that out of the way. Andreas, I want to start by perhaps pointing the spotlight on a blind spot for some Americans because we often get the questions about how do we Europeans view Americans and this whole US equity sell off that we're in the middle of. I think at least to some extent it's, it's related to a general fear or worry about what's going on politically in the U.S. yeah. And to be very, very specific, I brought. And now, sorry to all your listeners, this is a Danish article. They didn't produce an English version of it. So it's just to give you a glimpse into what's actually going on here or in our parts of the world. So what you're seeing here is a Danish pension fund, Academica, medium sized, pension funded Denmark, excluding Tesla. So they're basically acknowledging it's no secret that Tesla has been a market leader also in the green tech. But we're seeing more and more problems arise and they are excluding Tesla from their portfolio and investing in Tesla as a first step.
- [03:17]
B
Yes. And they actually had a position of roughly half a billion Danish, I think. So it's a sizable investment that they've divested. Now, I guess this Mikkel, this is very telling for the sentiment around Trump bets and Trump proxy bits here in Europe. And I'm not trying to pick a side here outside of very clearly highlighting with this story that it is something that is an ongoing thematic at sea level in the big investment firms in Europe.
- [03:53]
A
Absolutely.
- [03:54]
B
Should we divest from the US because of what's ongoing? I think it's a very, very sad development in many ways. I mean, come on guys, we used to be friends, right? And I personally, I don't have any issues at all investing in the US but this is something that we hear more and more. And I guess with this very important trade tariff deadline upcoming early April, also between the EU and the US on these reciprocal tariffs, we should probably expect more of the same, like politically based decisions not to invest in Tesla, Palantir, everything that could be connected to Trump in some sort of way.
- [04:32]
A
We're also seeing this on, you could say consumer level widening requests or discussions of boycotting U.S. goods. That's very, very tough to do even here in a country like Denmark. I mean, you're going to stop drinking Coca Cola. You can drink local cola. You're not going to do that, stop going to McDonald's. But Tesla's being hit by this in a big way because you do have alternatives. You can discuss whether they're actually less US dependent or whatever. But it's a real thing and it's happening over here.
- [05:01]
B
But it's also very telling for the practical decisions around how to boycott the US from an investment perspective because they're obviously not ready to divest from the US fully. By no means. But Elon Musk, he's got this whole trade war, anti NATO stance tattooed all over his face right now because of his actions on Somi. So it's a very, you know, it's a simple and it sense symbolic decision to divest from Tesla. And I think we'll see more pension funds, potentially the oil Fund in Norway doing the same. They have a huge position in Tesla.
- [05:43]
A
That's the top one. Yeah.
- [05:44]
B
And it's, it's something that they, you know, they're getting questions on a running basis from politicians on whether to divest that position, basically.
- [05:51]
A
And in many cases, Europe is a huge market, perhaps not too critical for many years. Companies for Tesla, it is huge. We're actually driving EVs. Not very many places in the world. You are that. So. Yeah. Just a little glimpse into what's going on here on our end of the pond. We get a. Usually get a lot of questions on that. Should we take a look and talk a little bit about Middle East, Andreas?
- [06:12]
B
Yeah, speaking of turmoil.
- [06:14]
A
Yeah, speaking of turmoil, now we go going from Tesla to an aircraft carrier here. I just wanted to bring this. Every chance you get to, to, to post a picture of an aircraft carrier, you should do it. The USS Harry Truman, which was allegedly attacked by the Houthi militia in Yemen. Remember those guys? And we talked a lot about them. Twelve months ago, they shut off traffic through the, through the Red Sea Channel after the ceasefire in Gaza between Israel and Hamas. They were supposed to open up. They did to some extent. Also for European shipping. We haven't really seen the major shipping companies reenter, but that's as far as we understand it. We talked to a lot of these companies. An insurance issue. So all the insurance companies have been reluctant to allow them to go through on regular insurance terms. Now it seems like they're beginning to hit US Shipping again. US has responded in a big way, and I think this week we're going to see heavily increased US attacks from these aircraft carriers. So I actually thought we had more or less put a lid on the Middle east situation, but this obviously reignites things also with regards to Iran. So how much do you think this is going to affect markets over the coming.
- [07:24]
B
Once it's quite clear that we don't really have a geopolitical risk premium in oil prices anymore, Everyone kind of reached the same conclusion, as we did say over the past eight weeks, a fading geopolitical risk premium, truce in Gaza, all of that. But this Houthi militia, they. I mean, I kind of get the vibe that they intend on being part of the geopolitical picture going forward, despite what's ongoing in Palestine and all of that. Initially, these attacks were quite clearly linked to the war in Gaza. Now we have a truce there. Now they're using another excuse that eight ships are not being allowed to offload in Gaza and stuff like that. So they're finding, quote, unquote, new excuses to get involved. And this Houthi militia. Militia, no one knew a word about these guys until, was it a year ago or so. And they've, they've gained a lot of territory, like, at least symbolically speaking, from, from getting involved in this.
- [08:30]
A
Absolutely.
- [08:30]
B
And gained, gained a lot of hearts and minds, not least. So I think they will continue at least until they're. Yeah.
- [08:36]
A
Erased from the battle. Their intention and it's, there's a limit to how much harm you can do from an aircraft carrier. These guys, because they've already been bombed a lot. You can keep bombing them, but eventually they're going to all be living in bunkers. And what are you going to do then? The only solution is to, to send in ground troops. And I don't think Trump wants that. I think they, they've been trying to. And Biden, the Biden administration especially, has been trying to convince Saudi Arabia, living right next door, being supplied with US Weapons for decades, ask them to go in and clean up the shop. And they're refusing outright. They don't want any part of that. It's a hillhole for them to get stuck in. So a very, very tricky situation because I should say the Houthis have huge advantages from continuing this campaign on international shipping. And this obviously delays the return of international shipping to the Red Sea and delay that relief in especially European inflation. That could. Yeah, but also, but also US Inflation, obviously, that could stem from that. Speaking of inflation. Address. Yeah.
- [09:40]
B
I would love to show a chart on global tariffs.
- [09:43]
A
Yeah, okay. Okay, I'll let you have it.
- [09:46]
B
You know, this, this chart went viral when I tweeted it. And kudos to bank of America, their investment research arm. They created this, you know, global overview based on the most up to date data we have from 2023 on tariffs and trade barriers across the globe. And this is ob before Trump started imposing new tariffs on, on counterparts. But it's just to give you the backdrop because it's, in my opinion, this story is not told enough and it's especially not really brought forward in the media in the countries that are hit by these new terrorists of the United States. The reason why Trump finds the playing field to be unequal is that there is no level playing field on trade. And it's not been the case for a long while. Even with the World Trade Organization and such obviously gaining importance over the past couple of decades, we're still talking about most countries worldwide, if not all countries worldwide, imposing more sanctions on the US Than Vice versa.
- [11:03]
A
Or barriers.
- [11:04]
B
Yeah, barriers, yeah. Trade sanctions or whatever you call it. Right. But. And the point here is, you know, the reciprocal tariffs that are upcoming in the first week of April, they're aimed at creating a level playing field. You know, they're trying to sort of equal out these differences. So if you're at the very top of this leaderboard, you should obviously fear what's upcoming. And my hope is, and it was, my initial analysis was essentially that all of those countries above the US on this leaderboard with more trade barriers with higher tariffs, that they would be forced to bring their barriers lower in response to these reciprocal tariffs. We sadly haven't seen much of that yet. Maybe India is the first country moving in this direction. We've also seen some signs of a deal there. But the uk, Germany, China, etcetera, that we can mention from this list, they've moved in the opposite direction. They've retaliated, they've told the US that they consider this an aggression under the World Trade Organization umbrella and all of that, which is basically nonsense in many ways, at least in my opinion. So I understand why there is a growing unease with the way the US is treated from a trade perspective. The backdrop to all of this, and that's more down your alley, Miguel, is that obviously the US got a lot of soft power in return for this, but it seems like Donald Trump couldn't care less about that soft power, basically.
- [12:47]
A
No, no, I mean, the sort of an institutional trade deficit, if you could call it that, or at least deficit in barriers, has of course been. Been a tool for the US to apply dominance or influence, exert its influence across the globe. Essentially. It was a point in itself for the countries to be trading with the U.S. even if the U.S. had to pay a premium, because that linked those countries closer to the US and aided the US in global.
- [13:16]
B
Affairs, basically.
- [13:17]
A
Yeah, Great power competition, essentially, that era, that way of thinking is out of, out the road door. Now, that's, that's. That's very clearly not Trump's aims right now. I'm very curious to see whether we will see this race to the bottom. I completely agree with your logical assessment. I think perhaps a lot of countries are still viewing this as sort of a black box. What's going to come in this terrorist space. The tariffs that we have seen implemented have been more down the sentinel path, I would say. So the directed tariffs at China, Mexico, Canada, all related to the fentanyl crisis more than it's been down this reciprocal path, if you understand what I mean. That could be some logic that still we need to see the Trump administration say, okay, that was one thing, the fentanyl. Now we're all in for reciprocal terms, then it would make a lot of sense for everyone to lower the tariffs and lower the trade barriers. That's the positive spin on this.
- [14:14]
B
But maybe, you know, if we look at the line of events from here, I guess we'll see some sort of package announced in April from the Trump administration on the reciprocal tariffs. Then we'll likely see a lot of countries retaliating to that. Testing whether the US Administration actually means business here. As some of the executives that I've talked to around how to navigate this terrorist war, they've basically all told me, let's see whether this is just a transitory phenomenon because, you know, last time around we had a lot of talk about tariffs in the first Trump era. Biden got back in office and kind of closed that discussion for a while at least, except against China, more or less. And it could be the same if Trump is out of the door again in three years or whatever it is, four years and a Democrat is back in the office. We then just expect this to vanish into thin air again. Then you don't really have any big reasons to. Then you can basically sit it through. That's kind of my point. So I think we'll see Trump pushing forward his agenda, retaliation, and then ultimately they figure out that he fucking means business this time around. That's at least how I know. That's my assessment of the situation. And then we'll get that low race to the bottom.
- [15:35]
A
I think, and I don't think no matter who wins the next election, I don't think they're going to take this in a different direction. I think this is the new normal. I think both the Obama and Trump administration were sort of, the tone was very, very different against Europe, but the content of what their messaging to Europe was very much the same. Don't trade so much with Russia. Rearm, be careful with gdpr. You're going to stifle your own innovations, all that sort of thing. The same messaging. We didn't pay attention to that in Europe and now we're getting punished for that.
- [16:06]
B
Yeah. And you said the Obama and the Trump administration. So you just leave Biden out.
- [16:11]
A
Yeah, that was the same. But I. Going back to the 2020, I just.
- [16:15]
B
Checked whether you, whether you thought it was like a proxy of madness.
- [16:19]
A
Not going to go into that one. No, no, no. With all those signatures and everything. No, no, no. We're not going to go into that one, Sandra. I just want, while we're at terrorists to do a listener question, then we'll get back to the inflation and some trading trade ideas here. So question from YouTube here. China has experienced Trump terrorists before and has sold US Treasuries. What will happen if more and more countries get fed up and choose another world reserve currency than the US Dollar? Maybe we can split that up a little bit.
- [16:46]
B
Yeah. So in terms of the latter, first on the global reserve currency, the US Dollar, I kind of consider these trade deficits to be some sort of prerequisite for the status of the dollar. So in that sense it will slowly but surely move the needle away from the dollar as the reserve currency. All of the signals sent by the Trump administration on Bitcoin as well kind of speak in favor of the same conclusion. But this is a slow moving process, be that it will take many, many, many decades to really move the needle. But I get why this question is being brought up on a running basis in terms of China selling Treasuries and whether other countries could decide to do the same. Bear in mind that you need to adjust for the market value changes of the treasury holdings of the so called safe arm of People's bank of China. The safe is the investment arm of People's bank of China. So yes, they've sold a little. But if you adjust for the market value changes because of higher bond yields, it's minuscule, you know, so they haven't really sold a lot on a trend basis. It's basically a mark to market to market assessment that has brought down the value. So they can obviously decide to sell Treasuries and load up on gold instead, for example, if they want to remain within sort of the dollar system. And you know, that has been ongoing on a trend basis, I think this is the exact reason why we're at 3k in gold. I think more countries could decide to do the same. So on, you know, on a trend basis, what could happen here is that on the margin investments will move from Treasuries into, into gold. And you know, we've seen similar moves taken by other central banks in the global south, but also actually a couple of interesting central banks in Eastern Europe. For example, Poland has made a big move towards gold away from bonds, which is interesting because Poland, at least up until three months ago, was probably the country on earth with the most positive view of the US they loved the US And I sincerely mean it. If you're those of you guys who haven't visited Poland, you know, it's not super often you see foreign countries just loving the. No, but they did that. You know, they loved them. And also because of all of the defense arrangements and all of that. So there is something like moving beneath the hood here. I have to agree with that. But it's a slow moving process and it's only happening on the margin.
- [19:27]
A
Okay, Andres, I want to talk inflation here. You mentioned this in your weekly post and you can find on the pro macro stage of, or level of real vision, it seems we can bring up this chart. There's a schism growing in inflation expectations, if you can call it that. We talk about the truflation last week. On the other, in the light blue here, you have the University of Michigan survey for the next year. How can this divide be so big?
- [20:03]
B
Yeah. So the question I've asked myself is whether we have a growing divide between perception and reality when it comes to inflation. Right. Because truflation is a daily gauge based on price scraping and live online prices of a lot of retailers and so on and so forth in the US at least if we take their methodology at face value. I'm not here to, to represent their view or anything, but the truflation measure has actually been going down. So if we take their methodology at face value, it means that Walmart and those companies, they do not increase their prices. Which contradicts with everything you read in the media, right. Try to open Wall Street Journal or FT or every single article is about rising inflation right now. So I don't think it's really, you know, it's not out of the, out of this world to think that, you know, the perception of inflation is just wrong right now in many ways. As you can see from the chart, we've had a couple of such instances back in 2223 where it was ultimately the survey that caught down to development in the inflation space. My best guess personally right now is that the truth is to be found in between, which is, you know, I don't get a lot of high fives by, by saying that. No, no, but, but I, I think there's at the, you know, a delayed effect that we need to take into account here. And my main working thesis right now is that, you know, all executives having read Wall Street Journal and FT over the past three months, they've been completely aware of this potential cliff just ahead of them from, from a tariffs perspective. So they've obviously bought every single component that they had to buy ahead of these tariffs being implemented. Obviously. Why wouldn't they and brought everything to the U.S. that's why we've seen a new record trade deficit. That's why we've seen massive front running of these tariffs in in various commodities and all of that. So the inventories in the US they are booming with good components being shipped into the US at old price levels. In practice that means it will take a while before price lists are updated towards the consumers. So I guess we could have a vacuum now for say best guess, a couple of months where inflation actually goes down and then ultimately we'll see the tariff effects kicking in. But it's not now. So yeah, maybe that's an in between conclusion. I don't know. For now, trueflation is probably a better reflection of what's ongoing and then truflation will likely pick up.
- [22:55]
A
So if you believe truflation is right here and the market sentiment is a lot higher, how do you leverage that? How do you trade that?
- [23:02]
B
Well, I guess that's a pretty decent sign to buy some U.S. risk assets right now. Say if you have this vacuum of low inflation for a few months, it should provide some relief. And as I've told Unreal Vision and other platforms, we've slowly but surely started to accumulate a little bit. We've also done that ahead of the Fed meeting this week. Let's see whether Powell will kind of conclude the same as I just did. Like probably there's a vacuum, we cannot do much, but we'll just sit there and stare for a while, which is not too bad I guess, and then they'll end qt. I think that's more or less a safe conclusion ahead of Wednesday as well. And ultimately if truflation is right here, maybe we can show this chart on bond yields versus truflation. I think there's some merit to the view that bond yields can drop quite a bit here at the same time as equities performing. You'll get a risk parity rally short term from here, if I'm right on that. And then we'll have to discuss when these tariff effects kick in, whether there is actually some inflation because of it. But for now, at least in live measures, we cannot really see it's perception, it's not reality.
- [24:18]
A
Okay, Andrew, it's a question here. We have a couple of charts as well on the financial conditions here. A question from Bernardo. Monthly data suggests global liquidity expanding on a month to month basis and on the three month annualized basis. If that's not fast enough for the demand, what do you think of this? When will this change Sorry, I messed up the question a little bit.
- [24:41]
B
I think, you know, the question is kind of is the money base growing fast enough to like foster demand. Exactly. And create some sort of positive spiral in markets. And you know, I've taken notice of the same development. Especially if you set aside the exchange rate effects of the US dollar. We've actually had a pretty decent Trend in Global M2. So we are seeing a growing money base both in the US but also elsewhere. We're starting to see signs of a growing money base, at least a narrow money in China. Even though just for the record, if you've seen a chart on Chinese M1 doubling, it's because they've changed the method to include parts of M2 and M3, at least M2. So nothing has changed in China, they've just changed the way they calculate it. So it's basically one big fake news chart if you ask me. So no new money, it's just a change of methodology. But anyway, when we look at global money, the global money supply, we are in a positive trend and I think it takes a lot to move that in a negative direction. So this underlying liquidity cycle is actually doing okay because of the private money creation. And setting all of this noise aside with Trump response from European pension funds and all of that, I still think that's pretty benign market trend if you, you know, set them all aside. So sure, I think the money base is growing fast enough. We just need the uncertainty to kind of dissipate a little bit to, to for it to really be a trigger of market moves.
- [26:20]
A
Interesting. Andreas, I just want to shift to, towards the end of the show here, a couple of transit job for a couple of trade ideas.
- [26:27]
B
Yeah.
- [26:30]
A
We'Ve talked a little bit about financial conditions. You brought on this chart that I really liked. A two month leg in the DXY against the financial condition index. What are you seeing here and how would you position for that?
- [26:45]
B
So this is back to the discussion on the US dollar versus liquidity. Actually it's just another way of showing it and it really shows what matters here. Because the US dollar as first of all a global bellwether, but also as a source of liquidity for foreigners is very important. And when the dollar is incredibly strong, as we saw right after the election results became known and all of that, and the tariff debacles and all of that, it becomes incredibly difficult for China, for Europe and other parts of the world to accumulate dollar liquidity because it's expensive. So when the dollar weakens, you're starting to see A much brighter sentiment and a much brighter tune, actually, to some extent from the authorities when it comes to liquidity and to monetary trends. Take a look at the message we've gotten from China this Sunday. They are now comfortable easing local fiscal and monetary policy because of a slightly less strong dollar. So that is why the light blue here, which is the dollar index, when it goes up in the chart, it means that the dollar weakens, it's flipped. It basically means that global financial conditions ease, first of all because dollar liquidity cheapens, and secondly because you see all sorts of side effects. For example, China stimulating because of the weaker dollar. So they've needed that weaker dollar. And the Treasury Secretary, Scott Besant, is incredibly aware of this and I think it's been one of his hidden goals to try and bring the dollar value a little bit down here alongside long bond yields to allow the rest of the world to stimulate while they're not. Because Scott Besant is certainly not stimulating anything right now with the DOGE Project and all of that. They're basically contracting the fiscal impulse. Much needed, but they're doing that. So they hope that China, Germany, etcetera, will ease the fiscal impulse in return for that. And we're actually seeing that, you know, even the German package will be voted through Parliament this week. It's a massive package. And the Chinese package, even though we don't have all of the numbers yet, looks to be massive as well.
- [29:03]
A
Very interesting address. And that should bode well for equities.
- [29:08]
B
Yeah. You know, financial conditions and equities go hand in hand in many ways. So if we get a weaker dollar from here, we're still kind of seeing that on a trend basis. It's something that you can celebrate in a few months time.
- [29:19]
A
Even US Equities. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Interesting.
- [29:23]
B
At least as long as you do not invest in them from the rest of the world. Right. Because, you know, then you have the FX effects. Right.
- [29:28]
A
Yeah, fair point. Address. I just want to. We have. Do have a couple of questions I just wanted to touch. You mentioned the, the, the Doge project.
- [29:37]
B
Yeah.
- [29:39]
A
A couple of weeks ago we looked at the US fiscal deficit, essentially. And, and I think we were about here on know, if you can see my mouth.
- [29:48]
B
February.
- [29:49]
A
Yeah, yeah, early February. And it seemed like the curve had been broken a little bit. The trend had been broken. The fiscal deficit is increasing.
- [29:58]
B
Yeah. Remember at the time I also told you that it was a massive chart crime we had coming up there. So, you know, the se. You know, there's a lot of seasonality in fiscal deficits because of, you know, taxes going in and out, basically. And in February you see an inflow and you see an outflow in March. So, you know, you kind of have to adjust for that noise to really see whether there's an improvement trend wise. There is a small improvement trend wise. You know, I'm still not really upbeat on Elon actually reaching the targets that they've put forward because it would require a much better trend than what we see on the chart right now. Much, much better. So they're trying to do something. It's still, you know, they've moved the needle a little, but that's about it.
- [30:50]
A
Yeah. In my opinion, this is a culture war or a wars of hearts and minds. Essentially. It's more about setting a new regime, setting a new culture for the public sector across the U.S. if he's to reach those targets they've set up, he has to reach into defense spending and, or mandatory spending. They're looking at those areas. But right now the communication is that whatever spending they cut on, on defense, they're going to reinvest perhaps on border security, but still within that realm. And the mandatory spending, I mean, it's possible they will find a fraud to, to, or, or, or unwarranted payouts. But to really dig into that, you have to scale down the programs. And that's a political discussion. That's, that's not an efficiency discussion. So. Very interesting.
- [31:37]
B
Migl. Before we bring up the question from Rob here, because I love that question. Yeah, we need to, we need the picture of the aircraft carrier back on the screen is Right.
- [31:44]
A
But.
- [31:45]
B
Because I, I think that's true.
- [31:48]
A
Yeah.
- [31:48]
B
The question is why. Why haven't anyone else stepped in and, you know, done something about these Houthis in the Red Sea, especially since it's basically the main shipping route for Europe. Right.
- [32:00]
A
Why.
- [32:00]
B
Why haven't we done anything? Why haven't China done anything? Because it's basically, you know, from Shanghai to Rotterdam, that's, you know, that's the easy way to get from, from China to Europe. In Europe, we don't have any aircraft carriers. More or less I do, but, you know, but, you know, it's just, it's been like that forever that the US kind of, you know, they patrolled global shipping lanes in return for the dollar being used in global trade.
- [32:30]
A
Very much true.
- [32:31]
B
Yeah. I, I guess, I guess that's how you could sum up the situation, in a sense.
- [32:35]
A
Yeah.
- [32:35]
B
And that, you know, and that is why. And I want to remind our US audience of that, you know, it's okay to try and get the rest of the world to reciprocally mirror US Tariffs, it's okay to ask the rest of the world to narrow trade deficits with the US but it comes at a cost and that cost is potentially over time that you do not control the intermediary of exchange. So you're basically sending countries all over the globe in the hands of China and such nations if you do not want to secure global shipping lanes with your aircraft carriers. That's my take.
- [33:14]
A
Yeah, it's a fair point. Another point here, Andreas, also to the question, why haven't anyone else stepped up against the Houthis? Because they're afraid to. I mean they're not afraid that they can't defeat the Houthis, but they're afraid they'll get stuck down there. Yemen is a smaller country, but it's not that small to go in their boots on the ground. A civil war stricken country. I mean even the Saudis, they're right next door. It should be their backyard. It should be their task to do something about this. They're staying the hell out of that conflict. Nobody wants to get their hands dirty on this. And I mean this is also geopolitically and militarily speaking, you're putting this, the utmost power projection tool right next to a third world country. And they couldn't kill us. Yeah, they're still attacking global shipping. They can't do a thing about it. The US have had aircraft carriers down there for over a year now. They've bombed. Obviously you can always scale up bombing, you can use more destructive bombs, but it's not helping. Great ships are not sailing through the Red Sea just no matter how many aircraft carriers they put down there. So that's also a testament to.
- [34:24]
B
The.
- [34:24]
A
Impotence of aircraft carriers and traditional military instruments in those sort of conflicts. It's a huge problem for river builders, Lockheed Martin, whoever built the airplanes on there that you can simply buy cheap drones and throw out of them. So it's, there is a shift in the military industrial complex as well as to what kind of tools do you need to fight someone like the Houthis.
- [34:46]
B
Yeah, and by the end of the day, which is non neglectable, we're talking about if you're bombing the Houthis, at least in the perception of many, you're bombing Palestine. And that's not a good cause in the perception of the public, which is why no one in Europe wants to get involved.
- [35:09]
A
That's another point to it. Absolutely, absolutely. So a very Very difficult conflict. You can keep bombing more and more and more. Does that solve anything? I'm not sure it does. Can you stop bombing? Not really. I mean, it's a very, very tricky situation. The only solution here goes through a nuclear deal with Iran, I have to say. Yeah.
- [35:28]
B
And they're working on that.
- [35:29]
A
Could be a byproduct of the Ukraine peace treaty. And that way everything is connected. Obviously, that's all we had time for. We went a little bit over our time frame here, Andreas. Lots to talk about.
- [35:38]
B
But, Miguel, allow me to sum up right. The geopolitical risk premium is kind of back now in the Middle east. So I think oil prices are, you know, they're on the up from here. Not a massive move, but they're on the up. Financial conditions are easing elsewhere via the dollar and via dollar bond yields, which is something that we should celebrate a few months down the road. And that's why you. I think it's fair to, to like, try and accumulate here on. On risk assets.
- [36:05]
A
Fair point. If you want to see more of our content, we have a lot of shows coming up this week. Actually, you have an interview with Raul tomorrow.
- [36:11]
B
Yes.
- [36:12]
A
I have an interview with Marco Papich on Thursday in June. And you have another interview with Michael Kao on Thursday as well. So we're going to be really, really busy in the studio here. We need some fresh air in here, some new water. So a lot of stuff for you on Real Vision. If you enjoy our content, sign up to the Pro Macro tier for more of that. I think that's all we had. Andreas, thanks a lot to you for joining. Thanks a lot to everyone for your questions and for tuning in. We'll be back next Monday.