When you take a look at the results more broadly here, what stood out to you?

Yeah, so I mean, basically, the banks did well with certainly Goldman Sachs and Citigroup having stellar results.

But all four of the banks ended up down in trading.

So the big takeaway is expectations are very high for this group, perhaps the overall market.

And unless you have super blah results, it may not be enough to please investors.

One thing we noticed, of course, is equity trading was outstanding.

Why is that? Because there's a lot of hedging going on.

Is this just simply another swing in the Korean market's AI-driven rollercoaster or are you noticing something a little different or more fundamental happening?

What are some of the catalysts? What are the reasons?

Sure.

So let's go through the catalyst.

So I think, you know, what are the problems right now? One is we've got interest rates, of course, at 25-year highs.

But if you turn it around, more and more strategists, more and more people on Wall Street, and myself included, are saying, "Hey, let's take another look at bonds.

They offer some real value here." And what's nice about the interest rates now is not just the, the rise is not just due to inflation component of interest rates, but the real component of interest rates is b- is at this highest it's been for a long time.

So I think you're gonna see more people come into that bond market, whether it's central banks overseas, whether it's people rebalancing their portfolios.

Tell me about this one.

Mm

... is lower inflation figures.

Now, in June, we saw a drop in headline inflation.

It was down for the month of June 4/10 of 1%.

But that was due largely because of relaxed tensions in w- the Iran conflict brought down gasoline prices and other fuel prices dramatically.

But what we've seen, of course, uh, in July and the beginning of August, is a ratcheting up of those tensions.

Uh, the idea that peace is at hand, memorandas of understanding are in place, is just not working out.

To oil now, which remains highly sensitive to developments around Iran, of course, and the Strait of Hormuz, how much geopolitical risk premium do you think is currently built into crude prices?

Your thoughts, David.

Yeah, absolutely.

So we're, uh, very happy here at the end of the second quarter with the best quarter, as you just mentioned, in, in close to six years.

We're up about 8% the first half.

Uh, that's above long-term trends and so forth.

And I still think that you've got, um, um, y- you know, some drivers though, however, that need to keep investors on the edge of their seats.

Uh, f- first of all, uh, one of the reasons the quarter was so great was we receded from Armageddon in terms of our, uh, efforts against Iran.

You're not saying that.

Do you think that's in or there's still more bouncing around that may happen?

Well, trying to time interest rates in the bond market is probably even more difficult than trying to time the stock market.

But I'm still optimistic here for two reasons.

One is 4.6%.

When you look at the big scheme of things, the average 10-year Treasury going back to 1950 has been well over 5%.

So it's still not absolutely that bad.

Second, of course, when you think about sentiment, Buying the 10-year or 30-year Treasury bond is probably the most hated trade on the planet today.

So tell me more about where NVIDIA, does it give you a sense of, you know, good AI investing opportunities going forward?

Some of your thoughts on the catalysts and does that continue into 2026?

Yeah, well, we're celebrating, no question about it.

It's the third year in a row of double-digit gains.

And I think the main factor, of course, in terms of the positive tailwind from AI permeated throughout the year, of course, and the AI names did extremely well.

I think we also saw, though, that it wasn't this year all about tech, as we saw some other asset classes doing very well.

Gold and silver both outperformed the NASDAQ.

In fact, gold has now outperformed the S&P 500 over the last decade.

However, do you still see up arrows? Are these still safe havens?

So who then is sort of well placed or best placed right now as far as the earnings picture is concerned?

Yeah, absolutely.

So if you're looking for the value play, I got to go with Lockheed Martin.

As you pointed out, that company's year to date performance is near the flat line.

They're trading with just about 17 times earnings, which is a discount to the S&P 500 and a discount to their peers.

They also have a better dividend close to about 2.6%, well above the S&P 500. all the other companies are under 2%, in some cases under 1%.

So I think there's a little bit of skepticism there, but at the end of the day, the United States government can't do without.

What are these companies likely to say? What we should be looking out for as far as some of the remarks are concerned with a lack of visibility on that front?

What other names? I mean, do you like Intel, by the way, David?

So, you know, I agree with our other guests.

I mean, you know, the stock is down by about 33 percent over the last 12 months.

We do have a new CEO there who I think has thrown the immediate prior results under the bus to set himself up for success going forward here.

You know, they are lagging in terms of the AI competition with the four, of course, Taiwan Semi, and of course, Nvidia.

But from a valuation point of view, you gotta give it some credit.

So he's trading at about $100 million versus 4 trillion for Nvidia.

David.