And that is, what are your expectations? What do you think the market should be bracing for in terms of this U.S.-China meeting here today?

I think the market needs to continue to brace for curveballs because that's all we've been getting all year.

And this market isn't giving anybody anything they want.

It's feeding the bears a little bit, feeding the bulls a little bit.

In terms of G trade is a very big deal and oil prices are a very big deal.

Are they going to collaborate with us on getting some sort of order? in the Middle Eastern area where all the oil in the Straits of Hormuz are causing problems for this market.

And that's a big problem here because oil is one of the three heads, the Cerberus that's really challenging this bull market.

And also the fact that in the midst of all of this, a lot more attention being paid to some of these auctions, including for seven years today, even as the Treasury is looking to refund $6 billion, what it's all meant for the bond market and thus everything else.

years ago.

And part of that is that the baby boomers that have most of the money, they grew up knowing that the market would be volatile, and a lot of them made a lot of money in the market, even though the market was volatile.

And I think there's a growing distrust of the bond market, which has reallocated money into stocks so that the old 60-40 model now has become more aggressive than that, especially given that all the corrections we've had really since 2008 have been pretty shallow.

I mean, we had 18, we had 22, we had the flash crash, but they've recovered fairly quickly.

This week we saw something very promising.

and that was the resurgence of a lot of the tech sector names.

Oh, yes.

The other point I want to make, fellas, is we can't let China win the AI war.

years ago.

And part of that is that the baby boomers that have most of the money, they grew up knowing that the market would be volatile, and a lot of them made a lot of money in the market, even though the market was volatile.

And I think there's a growing distrust of the bond market, which has reallocated money into stocks so that the old 60-40 model now has become more aggressive than that, especially given that all the corrections we've had really since 2008 have been pretty shallow.

I mean, we had 18, we had 22, we had the flash crash, but they've recovered fairly quickly.

This week we saw something very promising.

and that was the resurgence of a lot of the tech sector names.

Oh, yes.

The other point I want to make, fellas, is we can't let China win the AI war.

years ago.

And part of that is that the baby boomers that have most of the money, they grew up knowing that the market would be volatile, and a lot of them made a lot of money in the market even though the market was volatile.

And I think there's a growing distrust of the bond market.

which has reallocated money into stocks so that the old 60-40 model now has become more aggressive than that, especially given that all the corrections we've had really since 2008 have been pretty shallow.

I mean, we had 18, we had 22, we had the flash crash, but they've recovered fairly quickly.

This week we saw something very promising.

and that was the resurgence of a lot of the tech sector names.

The other point I want to make, fellas, is we can't let China win the AI war.

So how do you come out? I'm going to guess you're an active manager, but I think the numbers are against you.

Okay, this is an absolutely fantastic topic.

And David, I'm going to agree with both of you.

For most people, particularly if they're do-it-yourselfers, you're going to be better off in an index and maybe adding a sub-index onto it, like 75% S&P, 25% Qs, something like that.

But There's a recency bias that always throws these numbers off.

For instance, we had almost complete correlation in the markets, starting with the late tail end of the green span years and going all the way through the Bernanke years, where it was really just an asset allocation decision.

Fed was cutting rates.

Is there anything out there that threatens this bull market?

Are you defending sort of the bull playbook at the

moment? So we're still in a bull.

The trends are still in place.

And I still call it somewhat of a rodeo bull because there's a lot to fight through in this market.

But the trends are still in place.

And the way that you fatten a bull is with earnings.

And earnings have been fantastic.

Yeah, although decelerating, and we did spend a lot of the week, Jim, talking about the impact not only of investment income on earnings, especially the largest companies, but tariff refunds, which were a clear tailwind in some of these results.

That's my take.

Well, it's a big cancer, and they were building up missiles at a rate that nobody knew, and a lot of that was being fed by China, and that needed to stop.

And not only that, we don't have a very good record on half-baked wars.

If we're going to get in a war, we need to finish it.

Since World War II, we've got a lot of wars that we got involved in that we really didn't take all the way through, and we should have.

And in this case, it's very, very important because if you would have let them continue to build those stockpiles of missiles, we would have never had peace in the Middle East, A.

And B, we might have had some sort of absolute disaster.

Jim LeCam, what's the next move in rates?

That's my take.

Well, it's a big cancer, and they were building up missiles at a rate that nobody knew, and a lot of that was being fed by China, and that needed to stop.

And not only that, we don't have a very good record on half-baked wars.

If we're going to get in a war, we need to finish it.

Since World War II, we've got a lot of wars that we got involved in that we really didn't take all the way through, and we should have.

And in this case, it's very, very important because if you would have let them continue to build those stockpiles of missiles, we would have never had peace in the Middle East, A.

And B, we might have had some sort of absolute disaster.

Jim LeCam, what's the next move in rates?

Mm.

The only thing that could be a problem, crude stockpiles fell, uh, by 51 million barrels over the last month, so we do need to get a resolution here.

I don't think it's too late, but I do think we need to get a resolution here, or we're going to be looking at higher oil prices for an extended period of time.

Because the longer they shut down those constructs in Iran, for example, the, it might take years for them to get production up to where it was.

I don't think it upsets the apple cart, but I do think it's something that we need to pay attention to.

Yeah.

And, uh, it's very easy to nitpick and find problems.

Uh, and there are potential problems out there.

Um, w- are you, are you taking a read from either the long end of the curve as, as a sign of what equities may eventually do?

It's a real problem, and, and there, there's several reasons why it's a real problem.

I mean, look, when we started this year, everybody expected rates to come down.

That was part of the bull case.

Now it looks like we're gonna see a rate hike.

If you look at the fed funds futures, you're, it looks like a rate hike is due maybe in January.

And inflation is a problem.

So what, what is an investor to do if, if the o- if the decision really comes down to whether or not you think the war's gonna end soon?