Bumbles Bounce & A Conversation with Meredith Whitney
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On the Tape.

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SoFi, get your money right. Banking products and loans offered by SoFi Bank N.A., NMLS 696891. Brokerage and active investing products offered through SoFi Securities, LLC, member FINRA, SIPC. Welcome to the Monday on the Tape podcast. Guy and Tommy, I'm always joined by Elizabeth Young-Thomas, EYT.

How are you? Buenos dias. I am well. Happy holiday season to everybody. I think we're squarely in the middle of it now. We are. And football playoffs, by the way, you can almost touch the playoffs in football and you will be represented well there. Dan Nathan, obviously, as well, Dan.

How are you? Well, you can touch the college football playoffs, which is pretty exciting over the weekend. And yeah, you know, this is an interesting time for the NFL guy. You got some bubble names trying to get their little heads in the game here a little bit. So there's always some fun there. Well, it's interesting you say bubble names. One of the bubble names that will not be making the playoffs this year will be the New York Jets, but that's for a different podcast. But, you know, it's interesting. I wake up to Oppenheimer, not that Oppenheimer of movie fame, but Oppenheimer of Wall Street fame.

Elizabeth, raising their price target in the S&P now to 7,100. So, you know, we've seemingly once a week, we see some of these strategists ramp up price targets, which is fine. And quite frankly, they've been right to do it because as we sit here yet again, we have an S&P 500 effectively at an all-time high right around 6,100 or so. So let's start there. Well, that price target would represent, I believe, about a 17% gain from here. So that's suggesting another

big year in 2025 after following big years in 23 and 24. Typically the third year, if this does end up being the third year of a bull market, the third year is a little bit more muted, which is why I think you saw the bigger banks coming out earlier. It was mid-ish November with price targets that were closer to returns in the, let's call it 7% to 10% range, that sort of average range

So maybe the chase is on early. Usually we see this chase early in the year, January, February, as strategists start to raise their price targets if we have a really strong January. Maybe it's starting already because we've got all of these what are called animal spirits, Guy, in the market trying to just lead us higher and higher and higher. So this could be an indication of something that we look back on and say, there was the FOMO trade at its best and everybody sort of chased afterwards.

Or you know what? I mean, here's the other thing. We sat here probably about this time last year and said, we can't have another 2023. We can't have another up here like that. So there are a lot of things that are possible and coming into this year,

People are much more optimistic than they were coming into 2024. Obviously, most people were wrong coming into 2024. A lot of those price targets were in the low single digit range, with the exception of a few very bullish bets. Yeah. And I'll just say this, you know, some of the

price action we're seeing is fairly euphoric, not based on fundamentals, but to Liz's point, there's some seasonal stuff here. There's some excitement, obviously, around a new administration and what that means. But, you know, there's few examples that highlight that more than Tesla. Tesla is not rallying off of any current fundamentals. It's rallying off of what the expect

expectations might be going forward on some products that are not even, you know what I mean, available right now, right? And so when I see that sort of pull forward, you know, on November 5th, I think this had an $800 billion market cap. It's nearly $1.3 trillion right now. That says something to me. We're also going to spend a little time, Liz, when you drop your 2025 outlook, so tune into Market Call on Wednesday. We'll talk a little bit about some of this

stuff that has been around. I don't think you could say that Tesla is a low quality name, but when you have this sort of outperformance over a short period of time, you'd say, well, what are the fundamentals going to be in the next year that support that valuation, which gets us to where we are with the S&P valuation, right? Guy, you and I have been talking about this and obviously Liz too. We've had multiple expansion in a lot of areas in the market based on one big secular theme

that we don't know whether it's going to materialize anytime soon, right? So if you have an S&P, if you get to the Oppenheimer target in the next 12 months or so, that's a 16, 17% gain from here. And you don't have that commensurate S&P earnings growth. I think right now it sits at what, 13% or so. You are going to have one of the most expensive S&P 500s in a very, very long time. Yeah, listen, without question. And, you know, you just start doing back of the envelope math and

By the metrics you just gave, it probably puts us north of 24 times earnings, maybe even a little bit higher if those earnings expectations disappoint. So we'll see. But Elizabeth has made this point a number of times. I mean, that's what the market seemingly is comfortable with. And there are a number of different reasons why. And it's interesting. By the way, the Oppenheimer analyst is John Stoltzfus, which he's been around for a while. He does excellent work. And this is really what took me, Dan. And I know you have some thoughts on it.

This is a quote. We're not suggesting paradise on earth, nor are we expecting a, I hate to say this, Goldilocks world, but rather genuine potential for AI to provide greater efficiencies in key areas that are challenging progress today across sectors in society. Companies in all 11 sectors could benefit from improved productivity,

via AI to further serve the needs of business and customers. So once again, the promise of AI, Dan, Nathan. Yeah, well, guys, that's been a theme. And Liz, we've been talking about this, right? So it's been a very narrow trade, right? It's been NVIDIA, a bunch of hyperscalers, some names like Palantir. You know, we just saw... And you've been making this point too. Like if...

Walmart is talking about an acceleration in their e-commerce business to the highest level it's been in a very long time. I think when they last reported like 21% growth and they're actually talking about some of their investments in generative AI. It makes perfect sense, right? As you think about financials, as you get into areas in healthcare. And I don't just mean some of the insurers, but I also mean biotech. I mean, the list goes on and on, but I don't think it happens in 2025. I think you'll have lots of examples.

of how you can see it going out a few years, right? But if you're pulling forward a lot of that expectation, not just in the stock price, but also in multiple expansion, it does set up for a somewhat difficult period at some point. But to Liz's point about a S&P that's rallied 25% or so a year for the first two years,

We go back to that mid to late nineties period where we average 25% gains for five years until the bubble burst. And when the bubble burst in 2000, no one knew the bubble was bursting, right? They thought it was a nice little pullback and some stuff that got a little euphoric. That might've been a good setup to buy. And I'll just make one point is if you start

buying on the way down of a bubble that you don't know is bursting. That's how you got all the hate selling. That's how 01 was worse than 2000. And that's how 2002 was worse than 01, Liz. So I know that you were in probably seventh grade still with your pom poms doing the cheerleading on the sidelines. But Guy and I remember that very vividly.

First of all, I was in high school in the late 90s, but yes, with my pom-poms. Okay, so a few things here. What I think could happen in 2025, first of all, sort of a continuation of what's happened to these AI stocks in the second half of 2024. And what I mean by that is investors getting more critical of the AI spending and investing

starting to pound the table about we want to see the profit. We want to see the actual results of this. I think that will continue. Now, that doesn't mean that it's going to drive a sell off in all of those names, but I think it's going to take more to drive them higher. And I don't think that they're going to be the main growth engine of the S&P in 2025.

The other thing I would say that I think will start happening in 2025 is we all will start looking for where is this actually benefiting other sectors? I don't doubt that over time, AI will benefit most of the sectors, much like the Internet did, much like e-commerce did. But we have to remember, and I know I've said this ad nauseum, that took 10 to 15 years to play out.

So if we're in year three in 2025, it's still going to be a while before we know exactly where all of the benefits land. I think 2025 could be a year where we're speculating about where those benefits are going to land next.

Maybe it is healthcare. My speculation is that a lot of it is going to be software. I think those software companies are the next step of this. We've had these ideas. Now the software companies have to take these ideas into fruition. They're the next leg of how do we put that into action? So I think, but still that's speculation. Are they going to actually be able to make it work by the end of the year?

Well, you teed me up really nicely there, Elizabeth, because Jeffrey's had a note on talking about the durability of this software versus semis trade. By the way, a trade that you talked about in the spring of this year, you know, you thought you would start to see this. And as I like to say, typically in our world, if you're early, you're wrong. But you were early and spot on because within a few weeks of that, you started to see the turn. As a matter of fact, Dan, it probably happened in earnest earlier.

right around the middle of July or so. So as we're sitting here today, the IGV, which is the one that everybody looks at, is trading at an all-time high north of 110, and it's had a really nice little move over the last few months. So to Elizabeth's point, this seems to have some durability, and that sort of mirrors what Jeffrey said.

Yeah. And you've been highlighting the fact that, you know, names like Oracle, IBM that are telling a story, right, that's adjacent to this AI trade. Right. So it's broadening out a little bit. Those stocks have been massively outperforming some of these SaaS names. If you look at Workday was added to the S&P or is going to go in on December 23rd, the announcement came out.

this morning. The stock's up 8%. It's just going up on the year. This was a stock that I think at its lows this year was down about 25%. Same thing with Salesforce. Had that huge move after their earnings, I think about a week ago. That stock is up 38% of the year. It was down at one point on the year, right? So you're seeing some of these software names catch up to some of the old world names. And so I feel

This is definitely a chase because those companies have been telling a story how generative AI was going to be very additive to their businesses, but yet it wasn't being rewarded in the stock market. It was just going into the names that we know are building out the capacity so all these other companies and other industries could access their compute and the like. And then I'll just mention one other name that's still down on the year, and it reports, I think, this week,

Adobe, and if you look at what Salesforce had to say, Adobe was one of the first companies, I think in mid 2023, talking about how generative AI was gonna be a huge boon for them, except for the fact when you think about what they do in Acrobat and a bunch of these tools that they offer for creative, for designers, now you can go into a prompt

of some of these large language models and very cheaply have some cool designs and the like made. And so I think that's one of the reasons why this stock has had some major headwinds. But I'm really interested to hear what they have to say, whether it's a bunch of fugazi or not. And then I'm interested to hear what investors have to say. If this quarter is a little better than expected, Guy, and it's a raise, what we saw in Salesforce could happen in Adobe this week.

Yeah, listen, I'll throw one more name in the mix. And if you are a fan of the fast money acronyms, you'll remember a few years ago, the P in my hope trade, Dan, was Palantir. And it's astonishing to think that this is now a $180 billion market cap company, a stock that has now doubled since early November, a stock that was up significantly prior to that. So it's had a remarkable run.

This is a company that's probably going to do $3.5 billion of revenue next year. So you're talking about north of probably 44 times of revenues. The market doesn't seem to care. You know, I just throw that in the mix as well in terms of some of these adjacent names.

that are seemingly basically impervious to anything, valuations being on top of that list, Dan. Yeah. And I'll throw another name, Snowflake, that reported last week had a up 35% day. The stock was still down on the year. Actually, still is down on the year, which is pretty shocking. And again, after kind of articulating this generative AI story for this large infrastructure name, investors started to

pay attention a little bit earlier this year that a management change. I think that was something that, you know, some folks, at least on the investor side, were getting a bit more optimistic about. But, you know, it's interesting, Liz, that this has been an area that you've been focused on. It's clearly playing a bit of catch up. But guys,

you've been mentioning this NVIDIA since it last reported. I want to say it's about a month ago has really been underperforming. You'd say, okay, well the stock's up 180% on the year, but you're starting to see some dispersion in semis, right? So bank of America downgrades, uh,

I think you and I, Guy, have been all over this one. They don't have a competitive product on the high-end GPU, and I think you see a lot of folks just kind of giving up on that. So, Liz, how closely are you watching, you know, the SMH, the ETF that tracks the semis? Because other than Taiwan Semi and NVIDIA and Broadcom, there's been very few names in the semi space until, like, Marvel last week kind of joined the party a little bit. But to express this view, and you've also seen massive underperformance from

from late June in the SMH. And so what is that saying to you in tech at a time where, yeah, you're seeing some software play catch up, but maybe those are not the names to be in as you head into 2025? So the first question, how closely am I watching the SMH? I always watch the SMH versus software for cyclicality signals. One of the things that I tweeted about last week, I think it was late last week, was that the narrative has been that this is such a pro-cyclical rally.

And when you actually look at some of the traditional cyclicality pairs, that's not how it's playing out. We don't have semis outperforming software. Yes, we have consumer discretionary outperforming staples, but the rest of it is a little bit less clear. So this isn't necessarily a situation where you've got cyclicality hitting on all cylinders.

Again, I don't think that semiconductors are going to be the driver next year. And we've talked about now some adjacent trades. Remember what happened last year, particularly in the first half. We had something like copper go up a ton. We had utilities go on a big run. And they were head scratchers. People were looking at it like, well, wait a minute. Copper is a cyclical metal. But how...

Housing is still so expensive, there's not as much activity there, and utilities is a defensive sector, why would that be going up? Because they were adjacent to the AI trade. And once we figured that out, then it made sense. I can pretty much put money on the idea that there will be something in 2025, maybe not those two, but something that's adjacent that won't make sense at first,

We'll figure it out later in the year. That will make sense. I think software is a little too obvious right now. It won't be that surprising if it continues this run. I don't know what the next option will be, but I think we have to keep our eyes and ears open and not get stuck in this habit of, oh, it has to be semis. It has to be some kind of just specific tech step.

stock or tech industry group. I think it'll be something else. Well, there's a number of reasons to listen to what Elizabeth has to say. Obviously, we talked about software and there are many more. But one of the other reasons recently has been her view on what's going on in China. And Elizabeth, I mean, if you think about it, we talked about this. They sort of they being the

PBOC threw some money at their problems and they said, you know what? In September, we're all in. And you saw a name like Alibaba, for example, go from about $80 a share to $118. We all collectively thought you'd probably see a round trip and it

happened, I want to say, a week or two ago in the form of a name like Alibaba. Then again last night, EYT, we're hearing news out of China that, you know what, we're not done. And this whole China trade is seemingly being re-energized. And this is something that you and Mario thought was going to happen over the last couple of weeks.

Yeah, I mean, look, since that first stimulus, that was the beginning of it that, okay, now they've shown willingness to do this. And we saw the markets jump as if that was going to solve all the problems. It was overdone. And full disclosure, I'm long K-Web, I'm long FXI. We talked about this last week, I believe, on Market Call. I added recently as well, I added to both before Market Call last week.

And the premise was this. So first of all, I started those positions after that big jump because of stimulus and it turned around a little bit. It started to give a little bit back. I bought a little early. So I was down a little in both about two to 4%, depending on which one, but then it kept coming down and I started to dribble in more because the thesis that I've had is that number one, they don't like missing their growth targets. That is probably enemy number one for them. And they're going to miss their growth target in

in 2024. I think they're going to keep stimulating until it works. So far, what they've tried is they've targeted the equity market and they've targeted a little bit the real estate sector. What they probably need to start doing is target the real estate sector more and then target their consumer. I think they realize that they haven't done enough yet or they haven't done it in the right places.

They are not quitters. And I also think that they are spiteful sometimes. So they're going to target us back. So don't underestimate their ability to do that. The other thing that they really don't like is their currency weakening. So they're going to defend their currency and do what they can to do so. And sometimes that results in things that will hurt U.S. assets. So

We have to be vigilant about it. I do have a presence in China because of that. Now, I'm not all in super bullish about it for the long term, but I think that this narrative will continue for them. And you can see just how the market is reacting today. I did think back then, even after they announced that first stimulus that wasn't quite as effective, I thought the buyout

Yeah, I think you make a great point about targeting the real estate market. We know a lot of their consumers are, um,

you know, really, they probably own more real estate than they do stocks, right? And if you look at the reaction today with the FXI and the K-Web, the way they're rallying, it also tells you that a lot of U.S. investors have been positioning there. Maybe it was valuation. Maybe it was the hope of further stimulus. Maybe it's the hope that maybe a tariff war, a trade war is not as bad as some folks might suggest it could be.

This is, I'm just quoting from Barron's, and this is the statement that came out of the Chinese meeting here. And I think this is really interesting. Monetary policy would be moderately loose, a change from previous stance that it would be prudent. It's the first time they've used this language in 14 years. It doesn't change interest rates for now, but suggests that the central bank will continue easing next year. So the interest rate part, I think, Liz, is the point that you would make as it relates to real estate. The problem they have with real estate is just...

how overexposed, again, the consumer is, but also businesses and banks and the like, and people have been talking about this debt bomb that has to go off. Well, you're going to have to get a bit more aggressive, I think, to kind of stave that off. And again, if you're playing for that as it relates to China, it's been a long road to hoe. That being said, growth has been massively hampered by a lot of those concerns. And you have a consumer that's just not...

able, I mean, when you look at the GDP growth and you look at consumer confidence, it's saying something different. So again, when you have this sort of price action, this is two months after we had that huge move guy. It's telling you that investors want to get there, but they were very quick to sell as soon as they lost confidence in what the Chinese government was willing to do. The other thing that you have to keep in mind, if

If China is nervous, which they seem nervous or at least under pressure about their growth, about their currency, about consumption, about real estate, you name it, they're upset about it.

If they need to raise liquidity, we have to think about how they would do that. If they're still holding treasuries, what they have done in the past is they've dumped treasuries, right? If you look at what's happening in some other assets today, now these are just the ETFs that I track. The top six, one day price return here, we've got China, China, and then gold, gold, gold, gold, all the different gold trades.

I'm going to assume that some of that has to do with this announcement out of China. If China is nervous, they're going to continue buying gold. The central bank continues buying gold. They have been the biggest buyer of this over recent history, and they continue to be an active buyer. So I think there's a lot to be said for that today. And again, that's more of a currency support move on their part, or at least the speculation.

of a currency support model. Well, that's a perfect tee up again. I appreciate that, Elizabeth, because the dollar is clearly a story, Dan. EYT mentioned the Chinese currency. It's probably at a six-month low. And I got to tell you something, there have been a number of notes out, J.P. Morgan, I think the most recent one, talking about China's willingness to devalue their currency in the midst of

potential tariffs against them. So the tit for tat will seemingly continue and we'll see at what point, if any, that creates a bit of a breaking point. But Dan, she also mentions gold.

And what's interesting is earlier this year, I think it was in the spring, I want to say in April, there was a note out that China had stopped buying gold. And if you recall, gold took a bit of a bit of a nosedive on the back of that. But now I think Goldman Sachs just had a note that, wait a second, we think they've been buying gold all along and they're doing it in a more opaque way through the OTC market. So again, to Elizabeth's point, that's something they've been doing in earnest since

They've just changed the way they do it, which leads us to basically crypto and the potential strength of the dollar in 2025. A lot of cross-currents here, Dan. Yeah. And so if one of the pillars of the crypto trade, Bitcoin, obviously, in particular, was to obviously hedge out the debasement of the U.S. dollar, I mean, it seems like a consensus right now that the dollar is going to be

is going higher. We talked a lot about gold earlier in this year before, let's say, Bitcoin doubled over the last, what you want to call it, three months. It didn't care that the dollar was going higher, right? And so that was one of those sort of conditions that led you to believe, Guy, as it relates to gold, that the Chinese were buying, despite some of the commentary in and around that. And we had this great conversation with Michael Saylor, the CEO chairman of MicroStrategy the other day. Guy, when you brought up

gold. And by the way, you can find that on our YouTube channel. It's catching some steam there. So over at Risk Reversal Media, he went through all the reasons why he has levered up his company to buy Bitcoin, why consumers should do it, why other businesses should do it, why countries should

should do it, right? And so that's probably a trade that we're going to hear more and more about going forward. But, you know, at some point, it's going to be the last pillar of Bitcoin bull case from years ago that doesn't really matter for all intents and purposes, right? And so I just find that interesting. The other thing I've heard more and more about, and maybe you guys want to comment, this is from Mark Cohodes on the

twitter and i thought those were interesting comments so he's quoting someone here every major global financial institution must now recognize that its entire trading settlement custody and risk infrastructure will likely shift to blockchain rails in the decades to come okay so this has also been one of the stories in around blockchain technology but i think a lot of folks are becoming convinced because of price

that this is all going to happen. They're starting to be more open-minded to the use cases for Bitcoin. And I think we could all agree that the blockchain, and this has been one of the stories, and this was the bull case for Ethereum, let's say three years ago, four years ago, even six years ago, that smart contracts and DeFi technology that's built on these blockchains is going to change everything. And so again, until we see a major institution

with a major use case, which we haven't seen just yet, then that's going to be something that I think a lot of folks are going to basically be, okay, curious about. But by the same token, we heard Jamie Dimon for six years, what he had to say about Bitcoin. But we also know that JP Morgan has a huge crypto team and they're working on some of that stuff, Liz. So what does it mean to you? And I know this is an area that you've been focused on personally, that we haven't seen too many of the use cases yet.

The price action has been fantastic and it's starting to cause many folks out there who are not Bitcoin maximalists by any means start to think about how this is going to be disruptive to current infrastructures. Yeah, I mean, psychology is powerful, right? And you see the price action happen and it starts to make people wonder if they were wrong. And they're questioning their thesis about, oh, maybe this could actually change a lot of things.

I think your point about there needs to be that first real respected institution, I don't remember exactly how you said it, but that first institution who proves a use case

That will be a change. But there are cross currents here. Look, we'll have maybe the first institution that does that. I do think that'll happen. I don't know if it happens in 2025, but I think it will happen. The fact that central banks are starting to talk about using this as a reserve, that's a big deal as well. The fact that we have ETFs out there, right? There's been this sort of slow roll of...

adoption of it. And I think people are getting more and more used to the idea. The cross currents are the bigger it gets and the more adopted it gets, the more it's going to be regulated. And as we know, as you bring regulation into the conversation, then some of the

return potential can be limited because you just have more controls around it. So the asset class will change. I think in the beginning, the early days of this, people were talking about it very much more as a currency and something that was going to compete with fiat currency and that was going to compete with gold. I don't think today that the buyers are the same. And I think that's what we saw in 2024.

both gold and Bitcoin rose. So I don't think we're looking at the same buyers in those two assets right now. Perhaps in the future, it starts to overlap more. But I do think that this trend is shifting. I think more and more people are getting comfortable with it and comfortable with the idea. And you're seeing a lot of what I would consider traditional, sometimes old stodgy firms really, really considering getting into this business. And that means something.

Yeah. I mean, listen, if you're looking for areas of growth, you're looking for areas to increase productivity, you're looking at areas to kind of fire people. It's not too different than generative AI for all intents and purposes. Right. And so you must have some sort of early adoption to figure it out. The point you make about reserve currency, when you think about the strong dollar and if this is like the bull case for U.S. growth, U.S. exceptionalism, you see some of the folks that, you know, President-elect Trump has put in

place, right, to kind of focus on technology and deregulation. And, you know, they have a crypto czar, right? Well, you can make the argument that this whole stablecoin industry that's backed by U.S. dollars, if you have a strong dollar and you have all these other, you know, governments who are

we're dealing with a weak dollar, right? That it actually almost makes the dollar stronger for all intents and purposes if stable coins become a bigger and bigger thing around the world, right? Because you're going to have these countries that have weak currencies want to exchange in a very easy and cheap way their own shitty currency,

for US dollars. What's a better way to do that is buy US dollar backed stable coins, right? So that is probably the best use case right now, but it doesn't speak to a reserve currency that replaces the dollar, you know? So I think that's gonna be a narrative that is very interesting to continue with because there are plenty of folks in this new administration, specifically this new SEC director and some of these other folks

that are very pro-crypto, opposed to Gensler, who is very against it. So you might see some adoption that we have not seen at a rate like this, you know what I mean, in a very long time. You know, it's interesting, just to tie a ribbon on this whole thing, and I probably should have brought it up

earlier when we mentioned nvidia but in march of 2019 a deal that i remember for some reason but it wasn't really mainstream at the time if you think back five years but nvidia announced they were buying a company called melanox for 6.2 billion dollars and by the way at the time uh the chinese basically gave their approval subject to some monopoly laws dan well guess what uh

you know, this is something Elizabeth's talked about, that tit for tat. Now, seemingly, China's going to target NVIDIA for a potential breach of that monopoly law and some of the, I guess, some of the things they put forth in allowing that deal to go through. So thoughts on that? Yeah, well, there's an irony there too, right? So, you know, when you think of the Biden administration, they've been putting restrictions on NVIDIA, I think, for like

two years on their ability to sell the highest-end GPUs to the Chinese, right? So if you think about this, we don't want them to get an edge up. We know that they don't have the manufacturing capabilities to do the high-end chips on their own, and this has been a game of just kind of keeping them somewhat suppressed on those abilities. Obviously, the Chinese are very unhappy about that. They're racing to develop their own technology

at a greater speed that is comparable to what we have. This is a sovereign game right here. This is like, I would say at the backdrop of a lot of these trade wars is the ability for one of us to get an edge up on the other. And I think right now we have that. So for them to put some sort of roadblocks on Nvidia, I think makes perfect sense, but it also speaks to a fact that they are maybe making better progress than many people think on their ability to make high-end GPUs that will obviously power a whole host of different industries.

specifically when you think about defense. We can't end before we talk about the economic data this week, Elizabeth. We have NFIB optimism tomorrow. I believe it comes out at 6 a.m. That's for November. The ones that I'm looking at, CPI for November on Wednesday of this week and PPI for November on Thursday of this week. So thoughts about those and the importance potentially for the market.

Yeah, well, we didn't really get a chance to cover jobs either. So jobs happened on Friday. We had an unemployment rate that ticked up a tenth of a percent, but jobs added actually came in above expectations. So what does that all mean? It sounds like mixed data. Yes, it does. But it also opens the door for the Fed to still cut in December. And you see rate odds, rate cut odds back up above 85 percent as of this morning for December. So I think we're getting another 25 basis points

this month, which will actually be next week, that next Fed meeting and last one of the year. So NFIB, small business optimism, this is something that is going to become more and more interesting to me as the year progresses and ends this year and then as we get into 2025 because

A lot of this rally has been and I think will continue to be predicated on good feelings about what's to come. So optimism about the business environment, optimism about the regulatory environment, optimism about activity in capital markets like M&As and perhaps IPOs.

The Small Business Optimism Index is something that is going to show us whether or not that's actually happening on the ground and whether or not it's coming to fruition. So this is something we want to follow. It's been decent lately, but there are different components to it. We'll see what the report says tomorrow. Obviously, Mario and I will report on it and let everybody know.

CPI expected to come in, the headline number expected to come in at 2.7%, which would be a slight increase over last month. I still don't think the market would care if that happened. I think the market at this point has decided that we've defeated it and it's not a problem anymore. In the beginning of 2025, if we see what we did in 2024, you're going to see beats or at least

surprises on the upside to inflation, January, February and March. And if you remember that actually caused a pretty big pullback and a lot of volatility starting in April because markets didn't like it. We got worried that the Fed wasn't gonna cut as much and it was gonna be a problem for asset prices. Didn't turn out to be a problem at all,

But there is a seasonality for us that we're going into earlier in the year. So just be ready for that as well. Well, we're always ready for you, Elizabeth. It's great to have you on. Dan, Nathan, that conversation we have with Michael Seller, you can find it on our YouTube page. So check that out. But on the other side of this, Danny Moses and I sat down with Meredith Whitney, a legend in the research community. Stick around for that conversation.

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Welcome to a special On The Tape podcast. Now, why is this special? By the way, I'm with Danny Moses. Danny, how are you? Guy, good to see you. So in certain sports, for example, if you played in Major League Baseball, you

You have to be retired for five years before you're eligible for the Hall of Fame. Is that true? I think that's true. So, for example, Derek Jeter retires. And literally the fifth year in, bang. He's a first ballot Hall of Famer. No question. Yet he has to wait five years. But other sports like golf and bowling, you can be in the Hall of Fame whilst you're playing. Like there are golfers that are in the Golf Hall of Fame that are still active.

Meredith Whitney is still active and she is absolutely in the Hall of Fame of our world. So Meredith Whitney, thanks for joining us. What an intro. Thanks for having me. It's true. Is that not? What did I say that's not true there? Home run hitter. There's not even a question about it. The work that you've done over your career is as extraordinarily thoughtful as anybody else. I'll put you up against anybody. If I'm selecting a team in terms of rigor, you're at the top of the list.

So we're going to speak about that, but tell us what you're doing now, Meredith. So a couple years ago, I went back to my roots and started doing research again. So I took about a

six-year hiatus. And it was largely driven by the fact that the banks were so overregulated that there wasn't a lot to do in the financial sector. So honestly, I got a little bored. Two years ago, I saw this incredible opportunity and I dove in and have been having a ball since. There's not the kind of research that I do out there. And I'm always surprised when I

have a lead on something that other people don't see. And it's happening so frequently now. I can't explain why it's the case, but I've got a big head start on a lot of really good stuff. Okay. I'm going to tell you why I think it's the case. It's the case because Sam Bankman Freed is out there. It's the case because Elizabeth Holmes is out there. And what do I mean by that? People are not rigorous. They're extraordinarily lazy. And investors say, well, wait a second. If this

private equity firm or if this investor put money, that must be okay. I'm going to do the same thing. They already did the work for me. And that's just emblematic or endemic of society right now. So that's my take on what you just described. Or they're short-term oriented. So they'll take one data point in a vacuum and take it as is, as opposed to looking at data patterns and finding themes. And I love to do a lot of work

and then you can have so many different ways of playing off of those major themes. So I'll rabbit hole for weeks, months on end, and then work the theme and come up with different ideas. And one great thing about doing what I do is...

As much, you know, and I've had so much pushback and criticism throughout my entire career, it makes me better because it might point something out that I didn't see or make me more convicted in what I'm seeing because the criticism is either so biased, so driven by something, you know, that doesn't make sense, that someone's got a vested interest, or it really hones your point and doesn't

That's the experience we've all had working together. I love it. Speaking of working together, we've known each other almost 30 years. I joined Oppenheimer in 1996. You had been there, obviously, for a few years already. And you and Vincent Daniel worked together for Steve Eisman at the time when I met you. That's right. And this was subprime 1.0. This was the iteration of, okay, and I'm in institutional equity sales, which means that I'm covering the hedge funds, like Jim Cramer and these people that are out there and all the other, I covered some of the funds in the South, whatever.

Steve gets up on the podium, says the following six stocks are going to zero. Ugly Duckling aims financial. And the people behind that data were you and Vincent. They were obviously doing the work and looking. No one was looking at Moody's and S&P data back then in the pools that were tripping covenants. And I remember saying,

all right, Steve can't make this call for me. Meredith, I need you and Vinny to get on the phone with these clients that own these stocks. And please explain why these following six stocks are going to zero. Not even like they're going to be down 20%. We're downgrading. So that was our first iteration kind of together. That's right. You used us all the time. You knew where you'd get the work from. Exactly. So let's talk about that time period. I was a history major in college. And so I always had this idea that everybody was smarter than me. So I always worked

And when I got the opportunity to, I actually worked for an oil and gas analyst. That was my first job at Oppenheimer. He fired me because he thought I was too aggressive. Not Bill Hyler? Bill Hyler. Bill Hyler. He thought I was too aggressive that I wanted his job. I was like 22. Who, for the record, covered Enron. We'll get to that in another episode at one point. Oh, but actually that led me to actually make a massive call on the banks with Enron in 2001. But at any rate, because it all comes back together. So I got the opportunity to work for Enron.

Steve because I was the less hot of the two women that were put up to Stephanie Potter. So that's anyway, it all worked out. And it was it was incredible because Steve was

had really big ideas, but he wanted us to do all the grunt work that's great because it's the best way to learn. And we covered everything. I remember I would go to Houston and drive around the loop to visit used car dealerships to see who was the most aggressive dealer

used a subprime finance dealer. I learned the brokerage industry, we covered the brokers, covered the agencies, covered subprime auto, covered subprime mortgage. It was really fun. You really got it and you used us a lot. Here's a question for you. I'm convinced that in our world, whether it's analysts or traders or strategists, they have an answer they want to solve to and they do the work necessary to get to that answer.

you do the work and then the answer comes to you. I know it's somewhat nuanced, but speak to that because there are fewer and fewer Meredith Whitney's out there that just do the work and then it leads them to an answer. It leads them to a conclusion as opposed to already having your conclusion and getting to that. No one has ever described that, but that's exactly what I do. So thank you for Guy for noticing that. I don't know

to be right, right? I don't have to be right in terms of I proved my thesis correct. I have to be long-term right. So I'll come with an idea and then beat the daylights out of the data until I'm right. I'll have a large, a larger idea and then I'll work

and work and work, and then it forms out. And then the last thing I do is crazy proof my idea because I wonder why am I the only one coming up with this? I've gotta be wrong. That's been the case throughout my entire career. And then it's only after I've used so many different data sources

it, you know, the pattern recognition lines up and then I feel really confident. So I sound like, you know, I have incredible conviction because I've been working the idea for so long. I don't wing anything because

I don't have the confidence in that. I don't have the confidence to be like, oh, that must be the case, you know, therefore, and I'll figure it out later. I've done all the work by the time I've talked about something. So speaking of the work that you've done, October 31st, 2007, don't say Yankee World Series game or anything. Do you remember that day? Yankee World Series was not a Yankee World Series game. That was not, exactly. That's why I don't say it. There's no reason to say it. October 31st, 2007 was your Citigroup.

and I have it right in front of me right now. So I don't know, you may have that in a frame somewhere. Quote, "Is Citigroup's dividend safe downgrading stock "due to capital concerns?"

Our thesis is simple. We believe over the near term, Citi will need to raise over $30 billion in capital through either asset sales, a dividend cut, a capital raise, a combination thereof. We believe such a catalyst will pressure the stock significantly lower and accordingly downgrade the stock to underperform from perform as of October 31st. Okay. So during that time period, obviously, we were communicating because you were covering us, talking to Steve Porter,

and myself literally daily. You do this work on your own. People still weren't acknowledging what was happening in the financials at that point. You started to see, we could see pieces of it. We'd get to, you make this bold call. Nobody had that call. Take me through your thought process. The guy just talked about going out on a limb, doing research that really matters and not caring that, oh, here you go. You're going to make noise here or whatever. Talk to me about that. Well,

Well, the training I got in the 90s in terms of when analysts were responsible to saying yes and no on investment banking deals was really helpful because you could sniff out BS pretty. And we worked with Henry Blodger, just to be clear. He worked with us at Oppenheimer back in the day. So we know what yes looks like and we know what no looks like. But please go ahead.

So in terms of Citi, one red flag for any company is if they're restating over and over and over again. So Citi restated and resegmented their earnings over and over and over again. So you couldn't have pattern recognition. There's impossible. And I'd gone to meet and greet with the CFO, the new CFO of Citi.

And one of the most respected analysts at the time said, gosh, I've just given up on modeling city. It's just impossible. And I looked at this guy and I was like, that's your job. How could you possibly give up on it? So I went back and I was like, I'm going to make it really simple. And it's really hard to make things really simple. But I did. I worked out. I had that report. I worked on it probably for three weeks. I sat on it for another three weeks because I didn't want to get in front of the Fed. And when you read it back to me, I'm like,

Who wrote that? That's really good. The power of that report was anybody could understand it. And that's what I feel like everybody deserves. But it takes a long time to do that. So also remember, and being underestimated is a huge gift because then you surprise on the upside. But I had told a reporter at The New York Times after I had published it, I'd been

was very careful about their report because people would talk to me about things and I said nothing. I had clients pick, it's doing anything with Sid. I said, they called me the day before I released it and I couldn't obviously say anything. So the reporter was like, yeah, maybe it's a big deal. He,

put it on B2 of the business section. And I put it out and it's a very eerie, eerie title. I don't know if I appreciated or intended it to be such an eerie title, but holy smoke. So I went out that night. I went to the Greenwich Village Halloween parade, like thinking like as you do in your thirties and came into work the next day to go on the morning call. But it was

all over. It hit Asia. Jerry Maguire. It hit Asia. It hit, right? Right. It hit Europe. And, you know, I remember that we had TVs in our offices and I'll never forget, I was like, I've never heard of her. Like, it can't be anything. And,

Sure enough, it was the start of everything. It really was. And people started to examine, take companies apart. Bottom-up work was being done. Citi had a lot of comparable assets to what other banks had had. If they're writing stuff down, other banks are really, I'm going to say helped is the wrong word, but it really accelerated. I mean, you were the tip of the spear of what then transpired over the next few years. I mean, you can go back. I mean, Danny, you can speak to this as well. In some ways, you all were part of

the unveiling of the next two or three years of some crazy shit. Well, let's go to that because the important part, so the next leg of this is during this two to three year period, we obviously spoke a lot. Other people kind of jumped on the bandwagon and Michael Lewis came looking.

for people that were involved in kind of the subprime trade and saw it coming. He came to you first. So after the Citi report, the next series of reports that I wrote, aside from on UBS, I didn't cover the rating agencies, but you cover things that you have to to connect back to what you need the information for. So he called me and left a message. And when you get a message Michael Lewis called, you're like, what?

It can't be the same Michael Lewis. So I called back and I said, is this the blindside Michael Lewis? Now, that had not been a movie. It was his latest book. And he's like, no one's ever said that to me. People know me from Liar's Poker. No one ever says the blindside. And it was Ken Mollis who told me to read The Blindside because Lawrence Taylor changed the game of football.

Don't get Guy going. Let's keep it to business.

I think you should meet some people who had a different take on things. You really should go see them. And then that was it. He forgot about me. He was all over you. He was all over us, right? He called and the rest is history there. So let's really fast forward now because I think things rhyme a little bit these days. They're not exactly like they were in 2005, 6 and 7, but just kind of caution to the wind. Everything goes up.

and credit spreads are tight and don't worry about anything kind of here, the research you've been doing recently. And I quote you a lot on our podcast and some of the insights that you get from Basel III. You said two years ago, Basel III was going to be relaxed. You talked about Fannie and Freddie potentially being able to do second mortgages and the pools of capital that are out there. You're always ahead of the game, right? And it hasn't mattered a lot. People only take positives to be ahead of the game, not negatives to be ahead of the game. And those are positives for the banking system. But what are you thinking today? I know you've written a little bit about

private credit, maybe we can start there and kind of. Sure. So when I started in the industry, the big slogan was the democratization of credit. So because of securitization extending beyond mortgages, you could have non-bank lenders make loans aggressively because they had the securitization market fueling their growth. And the more they originated, the more earnings they would make because they would take those earnings up front. And it was wild like that. I didn't

I didn't want to go to business school because I thought I was worried to leave my desk to think that I wouldn't be able to get back to my seat or that someone would take it because it was a wild, really fun time. And there were probably, I don't know, several dozen companies that went public and the stocks went through the roof until the securitization market had a hiccup in 97 and then had a three-month hiccup in 98. And a lot of these companies went bust. But there were four to five years of busts

boom time. And what it meant was that consumers that hadn't gotten an access to credit before got access to credit for the first time. And you could buy a home because you could get a mortgage, but you could also get a second mortgage and afford a home. So the home ownership rate rose dramatically during that time. Auto finance rose dramatically during that time. Credit cards, that was the birth of Capital One. Metris and Advance, there were so many different companies. Greatest hits you're really going through, yeah. Yeah,

yeah, that came out during that time. And so my series now is Party Like It's 1994, because it's so similar to me in terms of how much... So it's not the securitization market, although that is percolating. And that's to state insurance companies can only buy rated securities. So there has to be a securitization market to feed the insurance demand. But the

So much loan production is being bought by private credit. And you could look at one number that I threw out that there's $60 billion in appetite from BDCs alone. But the credit just doesn't go into BDCs. This is consumer loan credit. And this is new. So this has been happening over the last six months, which is why private credit funds that are not BDCs can buy this.

Private equity is taking stakes in these companies. Private credit is doing forward purchase agreements because they want the origination so much. So there is a massive demand for paper, which means the underwriters will get more aggressive. Party on, Wayne. So names like Affirm and Upstart, which, you know, I've been bearish on just from an evaluation perspective, have gotten the benefit, to your point,

of just this appetite for their paper. And these companies are being valued as technology companies that can, you know, all of a sudden reinvented underwriting and reinvented loan issuance versus just what they are, which are going to be financial companies again at some point when music stops. Give me your thoughts because... Okay, so that...

That all mattered last year when there wasn't this massive amount of liquidity. So I was negative on SoFi particularly because I thought they were going to get into trouble with credit quality because they had grown their personal loan portfolio so

They had concentration risk because they had started off as a student loan originator and there were extensions and forbearance agreements with student loans and then forgiveness. That really didn't go anywhere. So they were growing their consolidation loans. I thought they were getting into trouble. They did a forward. They announced in October a forward purchase agreement with Fortress for $2 billion. And that's when I

I flipped my outlook on SoFi, and it was my top pick. It's up 65% since October. And that's why you have to be, to your point, Guy, I don't have to be fundamentally right forever. Events change, you change your view, and that's still got a ways to go. There are so many private companies that are originating consumer loans. And okay, so let's go back and say why consumer loans now? Because they've invested in other asset classes, private companies,

credit wants to diversify both duration and product. And so they hadn't been in consumer loans. And the mortgage market hasn't really gone anywhere. So the second mortgage product, home equity, debt consolidation loans, this is what's going to boom now. There have been a lot of calls over the years. I'm shifting gears a little bit, but we'll get back to nuts and bolts. Elaine Gazzarelli is a name. If you don't know it, folks, you should look it up.

She was the woman that predicted, I'm air quoting, the 1987 crash of the stock market October of that year. My instincts suggest I never met her, but she probably spent the rest of her career trying to replicate that. My question to you is how much pressure have you felt having a similar call some 20 or so years later to replicate that? Because we're all human beings, right?

And is there ever that thought that, man, I have to sort of come up with, you know, Meredith Whitney 2.0 with this or that? Or...

You just keep doing the work, keep doing the work, and it will lead to something like that. There's zero pressure because I can't control what other people think of me. And I can only control what makes me feel good. And I get hyper doing this. My gut is usually right when I'm on to something. I just keep beavering away on it. And I've been through this before, so I know what it smells like.

And people can either listen to me or-- - You don't need the reaffirmation. No, but you understand like that is extraordinary because a lot of people try to live up to their past-- - Right, to find the next big short. - Athletics to, so I admire that. - Yeah, so for example, people are like, "What are you worried about? "What are you short?" I'm like, actually, this is quite the opposite 'cause I'm wildly bullish.

And this is a bullish theme that extends not just to the non-bank consumer or partial bank consumer lenders, but it extends into retail. Home Depot is going to be a huge beneficiary because 60% of homes in the United States are owned by seniors and they're not moving because only one in 10 seniors can afford assisted living. So they have to age in place. That's

over 50 million homes. And that's why there's an affordability crisis, because seniors aren't selling. They're in the good school districts. They're not average-type homes. So what will happen is they will tap into the equity in their homes. There's $35 trillion in equity. ICE puts out a number that's $11 trillion in terms of tappable.

I think it's closer to 18. So half of the available home equity you think is tappable. Now, I mean, this market is massive. So the seniors need to renovate their homes to make them safe and comfortable to age in place. Right. So they need either a primary bedroom on the first floor or they need an accessible bathroom or that.

on and on and on. And this is going to keep inventory off the market. But for Home Depot, and Ted Decker talked about this two weeks ago, he quoted ICE's number, $11 trillion of tapable home equity, in terms of there's pent-up demand for home renovations. You're going to see that. But it also extends into so much of other retail, in terms of the consumer will be reliquified. They will, for a debt consolidation loan, which is going to be cheaper than a credit card loan, home equity, because it's collateral, a big

a base, whereas a credit card is not. They'll pay down their credit card, and then they'll have a fresh line of credit to run up again. And I put a piece out on Sunday that I was actually, so I've been negative on the dollar stores for 18 months, and I just went positive on them because I think many of the dollar store customers will reliquify. So they've been suffering because they have been coming off of the hangover of lack of COVID stimulus for over two years. And

fiscal 2023 was the first year there was no COVID stimulus. So it was clear that over 50% of households were worse off than they were four years ago. This could potentially reliquify their balance sheet and they'll have more spending power and drive up again. I think that the Dollar General consumer may be getting better, but not to go for those companies bottom up. They may have merchandising issues. They don't have the economies of scale that the Walmarts have. So those are two different things you're talking about. Thank you so much for... So I'm not bullish on those names, but...

but I'm not bear. I think the worst is behind. Thank you so much for mentioning that. No, that's fair. So I want to go back just for a minute and I want to really compare. There are some similarities between private credit today and subprime in early 2000s. And here's where I think it draws comparison. Tell me if I'm

right or wrong. So in 2003 and four and five, mortgages were going gangbusters. We were reinventing new types of mortgages, 228s, 327s, these arms, right? Ninja loans. So what happened, normally there was always subprime mortgages and they would go delinquent or default within 12 to 18 months. This time was different because the loans effectively were getting prepaid in month six, month eight. It's like, oh, these are good. AAA were money good. The same thing happening, my belief, is that in private credit, and again, you can't track it as

as well. And you couldn't track all the leverage in the system at subprime at the time. These PIC, payment in kind loans, modifications, people aren't paying attention. These covenant light loans get extended all the while. And by the way, I don't begrudge these private equity firms. They're raising trillions of dollars. The banks are obviously letting them do it. The banks are investing their own money into those funds a little bit, but whatever. So at some point, you're going to cycle through and have a normalization. And again, it's not going to bring down the banking system because it's not in the banking system. And I pass this idea by our friend

Vincent Daniel. And he said, Vin, what do you think about that? He goes, I think you're right, but you're never going to be right. I go, well, what do you mean? He goes, what do you mean what I mean? The government's going to bail out everybody. He goes, you're talking trillions and trillions of dollars. And I'm like, you know what? He's right. I'm not trying to trade on it. My point is that the similarities of people just getting way too relaxed about it and just not questioning the

I just think you're four years too early. No, I agree. I'm not going to short Apollo and KKR on this. I'm just saying it's having an effect that you mentioned before, your whole theme, credit spreads. It is. You can't refute. It's supply and demand, and the demand is strong, right? We are at the very, very, very beginning of this. And the big difference between now and the 2000s, so you can go back and compare the 90s more closely than you can –

than you compare the 2000s because loan-to-value is 24%, and that's the lowest it's been since the 80s. So you have such a completely different perspective on... But that's not about housing. I'm just talking about lending to companies that you're giving modifications to. They're missing payments. You're like, all right, we'll modify it another year. We'll just do it. We'll change it to a payment-in-kind loan. All I'm saying is that the false sense of security of this time is everything credit. I'm saying there's so much money chasing that it's obfuscating, maybe the right word, the

the underlying fundamentals of what's happening. Yeah. Well, it's the rolling loan gathers no loss and still we're in early stages because there's so much money. And I talked to an investor a couple of weeks ago and, uh,

working through a lot of this private credit. There's foreign money that needs to dollarize. So they're less sensitive to even the return on the investment they want to dollarize. This is why it's just a grand stampede of capital towards this sector. What do you think about, you know, we obviously in March of 2023, we saw what happened with Silicon Valley Bank, which was Silicon Valley Bank specific.

They're the same deposit group. Things happen extraordinarily quickly. I get it. But then there were some trickle down things. There are probably still too many banks, which leads me to believe in this new administration, the M&A in the banking space could be historic. Do you find any truth to that? Historic in terms of what time period, right? Because when we started at Oppenheimer, the bank analysts were the cool guys because it was all M&A. Huntington

is going to buy whatever it's going to Atlanta Chan was covering them with Chris Katowski. But I think you're definitely going to see consolidation where it happens is going to be the tricky part. So obviously, the big guys are shut out. The medium guys that are still there over 100, but under 250. Big question. They need to buy somebody because they grow through acquisition. I think they'll let anybody 10 billion and below. But so what?

Right. You really need to create super regionals. If there are 4,000 banks, bring that down to at least by half. I can't let you out of here without talking about the debt levels, you know, U.S. government has dealing with ongoing deficits. When will that have an impact, you think, if at all? And how are we getting out of this? It's the toughest question because people only care when they care. And

I focused years ago on the states because the states had to constitutionally balance their budget. The U.S., you know, the federal government doesn't have to do that. So it's anyone's guess in terms of what happens if we have hyper growth in the U.S. and you've got major foreign direct investment. Maybe we scooter away or kick the can down a little bit. But it's tough

for anybody to really know. A friend of mine, brilliant Maya McGinnis, who runs the Center for Fiscal Responsible Budgets, like, Maya, you had a hot minute of when everybody was paying attention to you with Bull Simpson. And then people don't care. And then people care. And then they don't care. It's in our best interest to care.

but there's no penalty necessarily for not caring. I don't know. No, that's fair. So the penalty could be in the form, and I'm not suggesting we're going to have failed auctions. That's not what I'm here to say. I think the dollar will be the reserve currency, but people like Stan Druckenmiller and Paul Tudor Jones are betting against the bond market, thinking rates are going higher because of a number of different things. What Danny just mentioned, the amount of issuances that are coming up early in 2025, and the fact that the market is,

is going to demand a higher rate of interest to buy our debt, wherein lies some of the potential pitfalls for the equity market. What are your thoughts on that? So I don't expect long-term rates to come down that much, even if the Fed keeps...

cutting, right? Agreed. But on the equity market, the flows are still so rich. And another question was, does high rates impact my view on the bullishness for home equity, not mortgages, but home equity? And

I don't think so. I think that- Well, long in versus short in, right? The home equity lines are tied more into what the Fed is actually doing and cutting to the short-term rate. Well, you know, SOFR plus something. Yeah. So Meredith, how do people get access to your research? You obviously have it out there for retail, right? Yeah. Some institutions, and institutions can subscribe to it if they want to as well. I have. It's

probably 50-50 institutional retail, but the way I priced it was for retail. So it's meredithwhitneyllc.com and it's a subscription model, but I do the same institutional quality research

that I've always done, but I just offer at retail rates. So when I had my firm, when I went out in 2009, you were a great client. You paid half a million dollars for the research. It's the same research. And you also do consulting. You can do kind of bespoke projects for companies as well that are undertaking what you're doing as well. Led Zeppelin's final studio album, Danny, was In Through the Outdoor.

On that album were a number of great songs, one of which was a song named All of My Love. One of the lines in that song is, one voice is clear above the din, meaning that there is a voice that rises above the cacophony of sound that we're bombarded with on a daily basis. You're amazing, by the way. Meredith Whitney is that voice that is clear above the din. Thank you for joining us. Thank you. For that, I'm always here. Thanks, Meredith. Thank you so much. Thanks, Meredith.

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