Transcription
Morning everybody. I have with me today Henrik Zeberg, who is the head macroeconomist at wealth manager Swiss Block Technologies. And beyond that, Henrik is one of the most tremendous market analysts you'll find anywhere. I've done, uh, this securities analysis my whole career. It's not often that I'm really blown away with someone's work, but when I came across Henrik in 2022, I have to say I was extremely impressed and have remained absolutely blown away by the work he's done since then.
Um, Henrik is actually an economist. Uh, he's a trained economic professional by background, came then to technical analysis, and has this really unusual uh combination of being able to look at markets technically through pure price and volume analysis, but back that up with fundamental analysis, fundamental macro analysis. That's a really unusual combination to be able to do them both well. So I'm delighted to be able to talk to him today. And I wanted to ask him to expand a little bit on the the shifting sands maybe between a liquidity-driven market, which we've had since at least 2009, and when the business cycle starts to really matter, which, in Henrik's opinion, that's starting to become more important going forward. So Henrik, thanks again for joining us today.
Delighted to speak to you and uh, love to hear about your thoughts about things. Thank you, Alex, and thank you for the nice words. That's, um, that's special and it always, uh, is good when people appreciate what you do, and especially when you come in from the non-banking world, the non-financial world, and you you start to do your own stuff and then you just, you know, uh, so, so thank you for that. Sometimes it's a big advantage if you come at it completely cold.
Yeah, I I think so too. I mean, I I think there is a degree of, uh, maybe, you know, becoming too, um, fresh bluff. Sometimes it's good for society also to to see, and I think that is what we see here with the financial world also. It's been kind of just leaning up against the same way of doing things. And, uh, actually, I got to think of it, what would I have done if this was 30 years ago and I would have had to sit and do these things here with, uh, in with a pen and pencil or something like that? I mean, so I think also maybe things are changing because of the whole, you know, digital era, and we can start start to analyze a lot of things and we get it right in here on the laptop so that we can, you know, that's right. You know, 20, 30 years ago, this sort of analysis was confined to the chart room of, um, large banks and, uh, investment funds. And like everything with the internet, it has destroyed every guild that it's touched, and securities analysis is a great example of that. Where if you're smart, if you're prepared to put the work in, um, you can become a terrific investor, a terrific trader, and analyst, uh, without ever having set foot in in a bank or a fund. And that's that's a complete change even in the last 10 years.
Yeah, I completely agree. And I think that's why that people from the outside that, you know, just don't think so too much about how, you know, you need to look at things or how it's been perceived, you know, you need to perceive things or the the jargon. I mean, I I don't speak the language of the financial people from that from that world either, but I don't care because I don't think, I mean, it's it's not the u necessarily the right way of doing things. And again, you know, I believe enough in myself also, and I think other people should do the same in saying, well, if I can understand it, well, then probably there's something about it. And, you know, this is not more difficult than being an engineer or being anything else. So it's about sitting down, you know, going deep into it, and just, I've always said, you know, if you just put your mind into it, you can become good at everything. And, uh, and I sincerely believe in that. I'm going to switch my camera off now and hand over to you. So maybe you could talk us through, uh, Henrik, maybe liquidity impact first, and then maybe talk a bit about what you mean by the business cycle and why you think that's becoming of more importance at the moment.
Yeah, sure. Uh, and please, you know, guide me along the way here if I just start to ramble. But, um, but I think it's an interesting perspective that you're putting forward here. This is about, you know, the the liquidity, uh, perspective and the and the business cycle perspective. And I, if you go back in time, I don't think there's much doubt that, you know, there is something called, uh, business cycles. And you can actually, you can watch it. You can just watch how the economy develops. There is a long way, a long, long-term trend line, and you can see how that is, see the, uh, the long-term growth rate of the economy and how the economy then shifts or our or, you know, the cyclical behavior up and down, uh, above that or below that, um, long-term trend line. And that is really the business cycle. So the business cycle is not, you know, everything you see, but you have to take out that long-term trend. And what happens in the long-term perspective is that, you know, if you look at it from a, uh, 100 years or even longer than that, you'll see that we are, you know, impacted by technologies at some point, and then that technology will help us spur growth, and you will see that the productivity levels of of a bit of a countries actually, you know, rises a lot. And we can see it just with the in the com era, but also think back in the 1920s when all of a sudden, you know, Ford came out with the manufacturing lines and all that, and you have the automobile and and things like that. And, you know, there are different things to this. This is the, there's a reason why I talk about this when we talk about liquidity, because what happens is really that when the, uh, technology then are being put into use, uh, first of all, there will always be a lot of speculation around when new technologies coming out, and, uh, and that's what we also see now with crypto, as I see it, and we've seen that before. But in the long time frame, you'll see also that that the, uh, the long-term growth rate is actually declining. And if you look at the long-term growth rate here right now, you'll see that it's actually been declining over the last, uh, 50 years or since the, uh, since, uh, actually since the Bretton Woods out, coming out of the Second World War, and, you know, there was like a fresh restart of everything. And what then happens is that slowly, um, there is a tendency, and that's actually something that's happened before, not just into in this phase here, in this cycle here, where the central banks and the administrations, you know, start to engage more and more in trying to stimulate the, uh, the economy. And we, you know, most famously, we have also when, uh, when Nixon, you know, took the the dollar off the gold standard, and, and that is one thing that will, oh, all of a sudden, we don't need that kind of restriction any longer. Let's just, you know, make sure that liquidity can be flowing, and we can make it even easier for us to to, uh, to take on debt. And by the way, you know, we will promise to support it by this and that and so on. That is actually, you know, part of this this what we see. And then we have into the 90s where we saw, uh, Clinton coming out and saying, "Hey, we need to make it affordable for all everybody to to, um, to actually own a house." And, you know, and that actually then pushed even more liquidity into the system. So, and then again, we had Bernanke coming out and saying, "Oh, you know, we need to make sure that we stabilize the economy." And we had this long period where we didn't have too much of a, you know, the growth rate was were great. Um, so what happens in in the long-term perspective is that even though that the real growth that we need in an economy is coming from real GDP growth, which is, you know, when you have productivity levels that are, you know, rising, and you you need to have new innovation coming in the society, everything starting to, you know, take that into into the, uh, manufacturing processes and whatever, and then you'll see the productivity level rises, and the growth, the growth rate can actually also rise. And you need people also to get, um, educated and start using that technology. That takes a while. But as I said, ever since we've seen, ever since the, uh, the 50s, 60s here, we've seen the decline in growth rate in the long-term perspective. And this is when at some point it begins to hurt, because that shows that that gives us that the yearly growth rate is then actually, uh, not as high, because you can simply, you know, take a long-term growth rate that's declining. That's because the the yearly growth rates are not so good. And that means that you get closer and closer to the recession levels. And the, and then you have the Fed and and and the likes and the academia that that comes from the financial world thinking, oh, we'll sort that out. We'll make sure that we get from, you know, good Keynesian thinking. We'll just, you know, make sure that we get, you know, some extra production or, and we do that by, you know, pushing out the LM curve in the Keynesian model and make sure that we, you know, get the the rates are just declining, and that can then, you know, more more investments will then become attractive, people will spend a little more, and that is a ongoing process that has been going on for quite some time. And now I'm getting to it. Sorry, I'm rambling.
Yeah. No, no, that's quite right. And and the the the thing that that strikes me is, you know, we are, um, this is an acute problem right now, but the the long history of, you know, monetary and fiscal stimulus rather than productivity growth, as you say, I think has contributed to the real perception now of a widening gap between, you know, rich and poor, asset owners and labor providers. You know, all the same context, all the same concepts that were talked about in the 19th century, um, are kind of coming to a, I say coming to a head, but certainly of more importance now than they were 10 or 15 years ago, because the more central stimulus comes along of whatever kind, the more spare money essentially ends up in the pockets of asset owners. And and this is one of the reasons I think this the, you know, the securities markets, stock markets have have ripped upwards so much since 2009, whereas, you know, wages have not. And so you're in a position now where, um, if you own assets, you've had a fantastic run for the last 10, 15 years, just a tremendous run. But if you don't own assets, if you sell your labor for a living, it's just been dreadful, and it's getting worse.
No, but but but and that's the thing. And this is where I may say something here that could be a little controversial, but but actually, there is a thing to what Marx actually was saying. And I'm not a Marxist or anything like that, but but the thing what is happening here is actually that you are by by stimulating the economy and by pushing this money, and we can see how much has actually been rotating into the into the financial markets. First of all, the financial markets then become, you know, that's everything. If you're not there, right, you know, you don't you don't get it. But the people on the floor, the real, you know, the the real consumers that, you know, don't have, uh, you know, as as exposed to the to the financial markets, well, they will see that their homes are maybe rising in value and so on, but their debt levels are also rising. And that's why there is this schism also where you see that the financial world becomes everything. And, you know, if you're just an ordinary Mr. Jensen, um, you know, it's it's probably a little harder here. So you as long as you the the the real economy can follow, but that's still where the real productivity growth is important. And if that does not follow, that's where the real wage growth growth also cannot follow. And I think that is the problem. That is where we, and that we now we right now we're living in a world where ever since 2008, we're just away, let's just print some money because, you know, we've seen this now for 17 years, and every time we do that, we have a like boost in the stock market, and everybody's saying, oh, this is a new economy, this is, um, you know, Bernanke, we gave him the Nobel Prize in economics because he invented modern monetary theory. I mean, I I have to say it as many times as I can on these interviews because I think it is ridiculous. I have to say, I I lost a lot of respect for the committee there from going out and simply not understanding that what we're doing is there's nothing new under the sun here. This is the same thing. We're pushing down rates. We are making investments more, you know, uh, poor investments, you know, look better because the the the the yields that I can get elsewhere is just, you know, lower. Hence, it's it's easier for for us to to finance investment. And you can keep doing that. And actually, we are at the point, especially in places like Japan, as I see it, where was famously asked, you know, but what are you going to do theoretically at the point where you have stimulated the out of everything and you have yields and interest rates at zero? What are you going to do then? And then he said famously, in the long run, long wrong run, we're all dead. And he, you know, he avoided, he ao, but he avoided that that's, you know, that question where where Mises, he actually says, well, if you keep doing that, you're either going to take down, you know, bring down that bubble yourself, or the financial system will eventually collapse. And if that's the the course we're on, well, you know, it can take some, take a while, but I think we're getting closer to it in certain countries where we actually see that, you know, valuation of, uh, things that has zero value. I I mean, meme coins at this point, with it also, it also dislocates, um, capital because at some point, you know, people become become desperate. I got this million in my bank account. What should I do with it? I mean, where should I go? And some people that are more into the business world, they'll run to a PE fund and they say, "Hey, dear Mr. Partner of a PE fund, you're so clever. Go find me a business that will earn me five, six, seven, eight, 10% a year." And and the PE funds, they'll go out and they try to to do whatever they can in an environment where you already have crazy valuations. So, this is something that is feeding, you know, uh, and can you can keep pushing it for some time, but eventually, eventually things unfortunately will not just be, you know, because inflation will be the the outcome of it at some point. I'm not saying it's right here, right now, because I still think, and that has to do with the business cycle. So, yeah, long story, that's liquidity. That's why we have this, you know, situation with liquidity here. And and I am, the reason why I think this time is different with liquidity is because we actually now saw what I think was the inverse Fula moment in 2020. That was the instead of doing what Volcker did in 1981, uh, where he raised the rates and we had the recession, and he famously was, you know, called to have brought broken the neck of inflation. I don't think necessarily it was him doing that, but that's for another day. But but you actually see then ever since you've seen inflation been moving lower. I think we got to the inverse of that in 2020. That was the shift, and that's why we are now in an inflationary period. Uh, people don't know that, but we you see the short term, but in long, long time frame here, I think inflation can be going up a lot. And, uh, that does not mean, and again, this is about timing, because we know the markets goes up and down. I think short-term, medium-term, we can actually see that the rates, yields will come down quite strongly because the business cycles are rolling over. But, um, I think that the change here is that the free lunch that we have had for such a long time, where we came to the ultimate, we actually, let's just print the money and send it out there, and, uh, that is bringing out the animal spirits to a degree where where things are now just so ex-valued to the extreme. Uh, and we, as I, I put up a tweet the other day here, we see, we have the market capitalization to GDP without crypto at 213% at this moment, and and 226 if we look with with with crypto, which, you know, why wouldn't we bring that under, uh, you know, as as part of it? That's insane. I mean, even if markets went down 50% today, 50%, we would still be higher than we were in 2007, which was a very high level. And we'd be so, so I think that's liquidity has been bringing this bubble that nobody understands that we're living in. And when people are saying, yeah, well, Henry, why should it become, you know, come down at some point? Because there's a shift, first of all, in the in the inflation, the inflationary regime has shifted, and secondly, also because it's the the the simply the, what do you call that, the the split between the financial world and the real economy. And I think that is really being, as you also mentioned before.
Yeah, so I I think that the challenge for investors, whether one is a long-term investor or a trader, is, you know, trends can carry on, trends up and trends down, or or even sideways trending can carry on longer than than anyone, uh, thinks. And it's really easy, I think, for anyone to analyze their way to conclude that, you know, a particular trend, be that up or down, is about to change. And, and you can cost yourself money, meaning either actual losses or or just surrender gains, misgains, by overanalyzing things and not going with the flow. One of the things that I really love about your work is I found you in 2022. I found you because in our own work at Cestrian, we sort of got ourselves convinced that the 2022 bare market was not, you know, the final collapse of capitalism as everybody was saying at the time, but a correction and one that would end. And I could find really nobody that agreed with that. And when that happens, you always worry about whether your own analysis is completely off beam or just a bit early. And, uh, our call for that was a was a bit early by a couple of months, I would say. But I found your work.
Same here. Yeah. But I mean, but you were one of the only voices saying, look, you know, calm down. You have a, you know, you have a great, uh, Al Pacino tweet you always put out, you know, calm down, right? Take it easy, relax, which is this, this is a correction. This will end. This will bottom out. And I remember you saying loud and clear, when this bottoms out, it's going to rip. There is going to be a huge bull run that follows this. And of course, that that has happened. And I'm not, I don't think you get enough credit for that because people forget how bearish everybody was in 2020.
Exactly. So, thank you for. No, I mean, you know, it was a fantastic call. You were there yourself also. You was you were looking for for similar-minded people. I got that. Yeah. I couldn't find any. So when I found yours, I was like, "Okay, that's two of us." So there probably are some others. Um, and, you know, at the time, I remember saying to all our subscribers, you got to follow this guy. This guy's work is terrific. And, and the thing that's really impressed me since then is it's easy, I think, to be perma anything, perma bullish, perma bearish, you know? So, so, you know, a perma bull will see a a correction and say, "I wish that's a correction. It's going to rip," and they will miss a a real bare market, a real 2007, 2008, you know, dump. A perma bear, you know, every time the market drops 2%, will celebrate and rejoice and say, "I told you the world was ruined. There you go. Evidence." And these are terrible methods. And these methods dominate particularly social media because they're prone to, you know, hyperbole. They play well on YouTube, but they they're misleading as to how the world works. And what I really like about your work at the moment is you've been saying, look, th this remains a bull market. Still the bull market for assets, asset prices, I think I'm quoting you here, are going to still run up, but you got to keep your eyes open because this reality stuff that sits beneath this flood of liquidity, that that will will rear its head, and when it does, that will signal a turn. And I haven't, you know, heard you say like the world's ending. It's just a bare market's follow bull markets as as sure as day follows night. And as everyone else right now is becoming frankly euphoric, um, I say we're at a peak today, but but we're heading that way because so many people are now bullish. Um, it really interests me that you're sort of starting to say, okay, but, you know, start to be careful now.
Yeah. No, I I do that because I I, you know, first of all, um, it's I I'm arrogant enough, maybe, or stupid enough, I don't know, to to put up a an idea of where I think things can be going because then I can, it's like putting putting up a thesis. This is, you know, um, you know, doing, uh, any kind of research, you will always put up a thesis, and then you'll test it and test it, and you'll test it, and you'll find out whether you'll try to, you know, uh, invalidate the thesis, and at some point, it actually, you know, starts to work out. Uh, so what I do is that I'm I'm trying to put up theses for what I see, but that thesis has to be, um, in line with everything. So this is where the multi-dimensional approach of, uh, of, yeah, my methodologies comes in, is where I simply say, well, if if you're going to see the a crash at some point, the top, well, then you need to see the dollar actually also starting to rally, because you'll see that there are, you know, if you get a recession, you're going to see that that's going to happen, and then you're going to see this and this and that, and so on. I mean, so I'm I'm calibrating it with everything that I see from the markets. This is then where I use the Elliot wave. I don't do that on a very short time frame because I don't think it's, you know, you can use it for that very for four hours charts and not something you can do, but, but not in in in terms of predicting longer-term perspectives. And, and that's where I simply have this multi-dimensional model in terms of, uh, the dollar, commodities, uh, you know, anything you name it, bonds, and so on. And that then with these kind of input helps me, you know, say, well, this is probably what is going to happen. But I have to align it in all of those. I I simply can't go to bed at night and say, "Hey, now I just changed my view on the S&P," because then I then I think, whoa, because is that actually calibrated with everything else? So when when something has, when I'm changing things, it's a big thing. Uh, then it's because I say, "Okay, now I see a shift in certain things, but it that means that, you know, other things have to fall in line with that." Um, so one of one of the things you said recently was, you know, everyone is so bearish the dollar because apparently it's all over for America and they're going to lose the currency status. And, yeah. And you know, you were saying some weeks ago, it's in a bottoming formation. It's going to pick up. And of course, that has started to happen just now. Um, I I don't think it, I don't think this is it, though. But, uh, but I think there's another, there's one more lecture. But that's where the structural understanding of things also, because again, if I said it was here, then I would find it difficult to see that how crypto market would actually keep developing. And I see the structures there are simply not done. I don't see it for a lot of currencies that I also follow, the dollar Swiss Frank, the dollar euro, and so on, euro dollar, and so on, so forth. So everything needs to fall in line. That's why I'm saying I think I think we're we're seeing the the beginning of this next coming bull market in the dollar, and it's going to be ripping. What we'll see now is actually the counter move ever since the September 22, when we had the first decline, then it went sideways for longer than I expected also, but it went sideways, and then it came down in this decline here. Everybody in January were so bullish the dollar, and I said, "Oh, it's going to come down. It's going to come down as fast."
I remember. Yeah. Yeah. And now we're getting to that bottom.
Yeah, I agree. And I think one thing that's misunderstood about this is the impact of the Genesis Act and the legitimization of stablecoins. You know, we're going to see more and more stablecoins issued, and more of them are going to have more collateral, and that collateral is going to come in the form of dollars or US Treasuries. And I'm not sure the penny has dropped really, which is crypto and fiat just got a lot closer together. You know, the more stablecoins, the more demand for dollar-denominated collateral. And I think it's, um, one of the things that will bring the yield down is that dollar demand and treasury demand. And it's going to be stimulated by more stablecoins, um, stablecoins being used for, you know, grown-up tokenization purposes, not just, you know, speculative, uh, crypto gambling, if you like, but, you know, the use of, uh, Ether and Ethereum in particular for, you know, grown-up asset manager tasks. And, um, I think there's a whole new category of demand for the dollar and for Treasuries, which I think people have not quite realized that these things are going to move in lockstep for a little while. And I know, you know, crypto coverage is great, so you.
Yeah, but I I think you are you're spot on with that as well. I mean, there there are reasons why we could see, you know, some of these development and developments, and of course, the all the the things we see now with crypto and with, uh, yeah, uh, stablecoins and and the likes is is going to to impact this as well. But I also think it will also simply be, and that's back to the business cycle, that you simply going to see that the the business cycle driven by the consumer. It's a, it's really about the consumer all the time when it comes to, uh, to the business cycle. It's about where is the consumer going? Is it consumer happy spending money, or is the consumer, you know, holding back? And, uh, and the business cycle driven by mainly two markets there, it's the, uh, it's the labor market, and it's the housing market. And if these two are doing well, then you'll often see that then the the business cycle is doing quite good. But often you'll see that when rates are going up high, yields are moving higher, then you'll see that it's actually, uh, the housing market that starts to take a beating first, because we've, you know, we have to refinance, some finance something. And I think we're now seeing that slowdown in the housing market that has been actually lasted for quite some time. If you see the number of, uh, existing homes sold, it's it's, you know, at levels where when the US, uh, population were 60, 70 million people fewer, we at those levels right now. That means homes are not being sold there. Uh, and that's okay for as long as people not losing their job. But if they start to lose their job because we have a slowdown, if if we don't get that pick up in growth that everybody's expecting, and, uh, and in demand, well, then you have something else. And that is probably the slowdown that I'm thinking that is going to bring the the dollar to rise, because the problem is the debt of the world is, you know, 60, 70% in US dollars, and there would be a demand for that.
But, but you, I get your point on that 75%. So if I'm an investor today, and I, I don't want to miss out on the bull market. I don't want to step out yet because it's still, I think it's still going up, but I want to calibrate my radar, get my antenna up. In your opinion, what are the two or three things that I should be looking for that should tell me when trouble might start to hit? You know, no one can do this perfectly, but in your opinion, there's two or three things that I should watch to go, "Okay, now I need to really, you know, be on my guard for a turn in the market." What, what, what would you do?
First of all, I would not look to the to the media. First of all, I will shut down everything there. So, that's a very good, honest, and, and pretty much do the opposite. But, but, but in a more, uh, you know, I would look to the main drivers of things. I would look to the first of all, I would say, well, things are not great when you see that the housing market is not doing great. We can see that. We can just look at that historic, uh, perspective, historical perspective, and see that when the housing market has been, um, stagnating, it's not been good times. And, and that's what we see right now. Um, so first of all, get to the understanding that even though stock market is running up high, and cryptos and so on, that is not the same as things are great. And, and take away this notion also that people are the understanding that, you know, if the stock market is doing great, that is because things are great. I mean, we had the high great bubble into 2000, and, and it was not because things were great. So we need to to go past that. So, and understand that the main driver of big, big market crashes is when the housing market is stagnating. That we see right now. Put that aside as a kind of a background, you know, or into the backbone here on and say, this is the this is the environment we're in. The economy is not as great as everybody thinks. Then look to this to the to the labor market and say, that's the second part, and the second most important market, which as for as long as people not getting laid off, it's, it's not such a problem, because, you know, then they can still pay their mortgages and things like that, they'll make ends meet. But you got to look at, you know, when that we we start to see that deterioration there, and that deterioration is actually already happening, but just people, we just get the in non-farm payroll numbers every week, and we every month, and we see, well, they are within expectations or 5,000 higher or 10,000 higher, and that's okay, great. First of all, they are very often adjusted by up to 50,000 per month going, you know, a year back when they do the the revisions. That's one thing, so you cannot just lean up against those. And we have another number coming here on Friday. Secondly, then you go to look at, you know, if you look at the, um, the weeks of unemployment, so, you know, average unemployment for for people, and then seeing that that has actually also been moving up. That is also just a structural thing telling us that if you go back before 2009, people were actually on average unemployed for shorter time than they are today. So the labor market, shorter, actually. We should take a look at it. It's actually very, very clear, and there's some sort of shift that has come in there in terms of the the, uh, the average, you know, time being of unemployment, and that is a structural problem with the with the labor market. So there are things that needs to be looked upon in the, I don't know what you're getting to the, what is the triggers that we need to look at, but I just want to say that there are things in the labor market that can always be watched and, and see this, things are not great. The continuing jobless claims are also staying high, and actually been putting in a very nice rounding bottom and seems like they've moved to want to move higher. So looking at that, and then saying, well, we have the housing market, we have that structural thing on the labor market, and we have the massive bubble of the, what should I be watching? The two, the three things I would say is, first of all, look at the short-term yields. The short-term yields is one of the things that when they start to plummet, you will see that's because the expectation is that things are going to be do to to to go into something bad. And that's normally the one-month yield, US, uh, government bond yield, the one-year, the two-year also. And I actually have some some tools SW which will tell me that when it crosses a certain, let's say, a panic point, that's when that's that's when the hits the fan. That's probably that's that's why I want to say I said on Twitter, let me sorry, see if I can't point out the month that the recession actually starts this time, because we know we know the NBER, they will come out a year later and say, "Oh, by the way, recession started in December." No, it turns out we're in a recession. That's we had a recession. Yeah. But you can actually look to those. And that's why the the yield levels, the short-term yields are one one thing. And obviously also then the yield spreads. But also looking at the labor market, just simply looking at the initial claims and saying, hey, we are at historically low levels right now, but if you start to see something of a move up there, and there are certain levels, and, well, then maybe those structural things that I was mentioning in the other, uh, in the other part there, is starting to develop. And that's what I do with the, that's actually the leading and the coincident indicator. So you have the yield spread and so on has been part of, and the housing market has been part of the leading indicators telling us things are not great. It's not here. It's not right now, but they're not great. So please look at your coincident indicators and tell us how that looks. And then that's where you look into those and say, when do we start to see things developing? And, and I look to momentum of things. And this, I was actually in in a chat once at one point with a, uh, one of the guys from the industry, right, and it was a capital fund, and I was made almost, I tried to explain to him how I do things, and I was almost made fun of that, you know, you use momentum analysis for m? Okay. But if you've been made fun of, that's when you know you're onto something, right? You hit exactly when anyone's work, then you right up. I'm okay with that. And I could see that they're, you know, that what they demanded in terms of return was 7% when the NASDAQ was up 22%. So I thought, okay, maybe they they missed something. But anyway, um, but so I looked at and I said, well, but they, but the economy is a super tanker. You have to understand when there is a certain move in a certain direction, that's also why the Fed can't turn it on a dime when they come in and do. So we have to look to the momentum also of these things of the macro. And I think that is one of the things I also do. So, uh, when when the hits the fan, uh, which it hasn't done just yet, which is means that we're not in an imminent threat of a recession, meaning the next month or this month, uh, then, um, then, uh, you know, but, but there will be signs of that, and those are the within those, uh, those areas that I mentioned there, they are there, they are there, you can look at it.
That's great. So, I would say to anyone that's watching this that doesn't know Henrik, um, you absolutely should follow him on Twitter. Uh, we'll post his Twitter handle under the, uh, the video right here in comments, but if you just, uh, search him on Twitter, Henrik Zeberg, a huge following, and if you don't follow him, you you really should. His work's tremendous. Uh, he also has a series of paid newsletters that you might want to take a look at. Um, that depend on your circumstance, but do do follow him on Twitter. He's really tremendous work. And, uh, again, I, I've been in this business for my whole career. Uh, it's not often that I really come across someone that I'm super impressed with, but, uh, I think Henrik does just a great job, and for the three years I I followed him, just continue to be impressed. So do take a look at his work. Um, Henrik, thanks so much for spending time with us today. Really enjoyed talking to you as always, and, um, uh, I know that you'll continue to put great stuff out there for people to to read. And again, uh, do take a look at Henrik's work. I encourage everyone to follow. Thanks a lot, Henrik. Talk to you soon.
Thank you, Alex.