Move Over Mag7: Introducing The Fateful 8
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All right. Welcome to the Monday edition of the On the Tape podcast. I am Dan Nathan. I'm joined by Danny Moses. Danny, how are you? I'm good, man. How was the weekend? It was pretty good there. I mean, some people had better weekends than others. And I think that would be Liz Thomas. Liz Thomas, how are you doing? I'm

doing well. Why do you think I had a good weekend? Well, your Packers won yesterday. I know. And Danny Steelers lost. Yeah, there you go. And my Bears played tonight. And Danny, whatever that line is, I have to assume that the Bears are tanking right now. So we're going to take the Vikings. Really quickly on that, Liz, you got to think that the NFC Norris division is probably the strongest division in the entire NFL. We have the Detroit Lions. We have the Minnesota Vikings.

Then we have your lowly Packers, but they may not make it either. So I don't know. Thoughts there, Danny, on that call. Packers look strong. Vikings look like they're trying to fade, but I agree with you. Chicago's going to tank. There is a new coach there. We'll see what happens there. But the Lions, they're vulnerable for sure. And Goff,

always tends to show some weaknesses this time of the season. So we'll see what happens. Well, Liz, and we've already talked about this. We're going to have our little risk reversal retreat next fall up there in Green Bay. We found this house, Danny, online that is made for tailgating. It's got Lambeau Field in view there. So don't hold your breath for Liz's Packers to get to the Super Bowl this year, but we will find ourselves...

at a tailgate in the fall. All right, guys, we've got a lot to do here. This is kind of Liz's Super Bowl week, if you will. We have the Fed meeting on Wednesday. We also have a lot of earnings this week, or not a lot, but some very interesting ones to us. There's expectations of stimulus in China. And we have the fateful eight. We just had Broadcom make it to the trillion dollar club.

And they make up now those $820 trillion in market cap. It's about 40% of the S&P 500's market cap. After all that, stick around for the conversation that Guy and I had with Ron Biscardi, the CEO of iConnections, and Caitlin Mallon, the COO. We talked about some of the products that their customers are interested in globally, where some of the funding is going. And we also talked about the Global Alts Conference in late December.

The guy and I are going to be at a whole host of monster investors are going to be there. Steve Cohen, Howard Marks, Danny, and the big short guys are going to be down there. We're going to be doing fast money down there for a couple of days. So really excited about that. So check out that conversation. Liz,

Let's start with last week. Okay. The S&P was down on the week. I think it was probably its first losing week since the election. The 10-year yield had a huge move from 4.15 to close the week at 4.4%. The dollar rallied with yields. Both are coming off a little bit and we have Bitcoin above 100,000. What do you want to start with right there? Because a

Obviously, Friday was a really interesting day for the NASDAQ that was up three quarters of 1% because of Broadcom's 25% move. Where do you want to start? What was most impactful to you last week heading into this week with the Fed meeting? We can start with yields, I think. I mean, we've been talking about this for a while. I continue to believe that 4.5% on the 10-year is the spot to watch. And we're not there right now, but we did climb quite a bit last week. I think that 4.5% mark...

is there because that's where equities start to get nervous. And that happened last time when we've kind of hovered around it. I think if we near it again, we will see volatility in the equity market. We're still at a point where we are not inverted on the yield curve. So we remain sort of in that place. And actually over the weekend,

we went positive, so uninverted at the three-month 10-year portion of the yield curve too, which is not one that's talked about very much, but that is one that the Fed tends to follow. So I think that is something to watch for sure. The dollar strength moving in tandem is natural. And I think a lot of this has to do with some other disappointing stuff that's going on around the globe. I know that

Chinese retail sales disappointed today. Germany is in a little bit of a hurting position. We've got France with a lot of political upheaval going on. So the dollar is strengthening, I think, on the heels of some of that turmoil going on around the globe. And then obviously we've got

A Fed meeting this week, which is what you referred to as my Super Bowl, last one of the year. We have now moved to 97% probability baked into the market that they're going to cut by 25 basis points. I don't think that's a surprise. I think we're going to hear a lot of jawboning about whether or not that's the right decision, but I think we're getting it no matter what.

Over the last couple of weeks, we've seen inflation burn a little bit. The economic growth in the US is a little bit better than expected. We're going into what appears to be a hawkish cut.

A lot of dissenters, potentially the Fed this time around versus last time. We get a new dot plot. ECB cut last week. Liz mentioned some stuff in France going on politically. Moody's downgraded France, obviously still investment grade, but they did. Germany has political issues as well. So on a relative basis, we still look strong. ECB obviously cut last week. Bank of Japan meets this week. And I think all roads point to the U.S. just being stronger than everybody else.

And so money comes here, dollar strengthens. But to your guy's point, and Dan has always said the 10-year is four bid offered at 5%. I agree. If we get above four and a half and start trading towards five, certainly you're going to see some added volatility in U.S. equities for sure. So Danny, on that front,

You just said a hawkish cut here. And when you think of expectations, the CME Fed Funds tracker for January is suggesting that there's a low probability that we get another cut. So to Liz's point about that four and a half level and what it means for equities, there was a couple of things that were said about that.

articles over the weekend and maybe almost every major publication about what the fed may or may not do relative to trump's policies that he at least that he's laid out that he wants to implement early in 2025 the biggest one would be tariffs and then the other would be mass deportations obviously both would be very inflationary you know we can get to the tax cuts

when that happens. But so the Fed really has to walk a tightrope here, Fed Chair Powell in particular, that he does not sound political at all. I don't think that's going to happen on Wednesday, but Trump, one way or another, might just decide that if it's hawkish, that it's being very political.

Yeah. And you get kind of nice timing for the Fed because every meetings are obviously every six weeks. So late January after the inauguration, he gets to come in and take a pause. So I don't think there's any issue around that. That's priced into the market. It's when we get to the March meeting, to your point, that things start to get priced in a little bit more, about a 50 percent chance potentially of a cut in March, but really only two cuts priced in for all of 2025. So I think then you'll have this push off, I think, for six to eight weeks. And to your point,

People say, oh, the market's starting to price in tariffs. No, it's not. The market's starting to price in mass deportation. No, it's not. I think it's a kind of wait and see. So we're going to be in this kind of deep breath moment, I think, as we turn the counter. Remember, again, it won't be an issue, but the debt ceiling issue will start to, I think, make noise in terms of, of course, it's going to get raised. Of course, you can do, you know, extraordinary measures and stuff, but all that's going to start happening. To your point, Dan, and it'll look political in January, February, March, for sure.

Yeah. Hey, Liz, you know, something I've been reading about over the last few days is actually for the last few weeks about small business confidence, right? And it's kind of peaking at levels that it has not been in a very long time. So obviously two thirds of employment here in the U.S. comes from small to medium sized business. And just kind of strikes me as odd that if the rhetoric for tariffs gets dialed up, which it has been, because if you think about

Canada and Mexico being thrown on the heap as far as China's concerned. You know, aren't small businesses most likely to be first impacted by increased tariffs, especially of those from our allies? Well, increased tariffs. Yes. I mean, small businesses, honestly, what I would think of first is that this rise in rates is the thing that's going to impact them most. And and that'll impact sentiment quicker than

because it happens quicker in the market. The reaction function is faster as it's occurring. But you're right to point out that small business optimism is not only recovering, but actually soaring. I mean, it beat expectations a couple weeks ago, or 1210 it came out, by about five or six points. So it's gone up quite a bit. And I think small businesses right now, a little bit to Danny's point, are actually

assuming that in 2025, we've got this pro-business environment coming. And not to say that they're ignoring some of those other risk factors, like tariffs are going to put pressure on costs, but I think they're assuming that the pro-business and pro-cyclical and pro-US environment is going to insulate them from some of those forces. Because the other thing to remember is that small businesses are not multinational typically. They're not depending on other countries for trade,

They are mostly U.S.-focused. So if the U.S. remains the strongest country, the strongest consumer, the strongest business environment or the friendliest business environment, I think small businesses are assuming that that's going to be a good thing for them. Yeah, Liz, on that front, though, if you look at the Russell 2000, right, the small cap index, it had about a 10 percent rally after the election to its recent highs. And then it's given back about half of that. And what's also interesting is that I think Guy had been mentioning this last week,

on the chart when we did a market call together, it basically got back almost to the penny from its late 21 highs and was rejected there. Why do you think then the Russell 2000 is underperforming as dramatically it is? It's only up 15% of the year. We have an S&P that's up nearly 27.5%. We have a NASDAQ that's up 33%. If we are seeing that small business optimism, and we are seeing optimism in general about the U.S. economy inflecting relative to

all of these others. You just mentioned they don't have a lot of international exposure. Yeah, and I think that's the difference between what's going to happen in market reactions to yields and rates rising versus when you survey them and say, how are you feeling about your plans for the future? And they say, we're feeling optimistic. So right now, I think there's still a lid on

on small cap stocks because of the level of yield and now because of the idea that the Fed is not going to be as accommodative and not going to be cutting rates as much as we originally expected. And real quick on that point, I know we already covered the Fed, but I just want to make this point as well. In 2025, we already know the market is not expecting a lot of rate cuts. Small businesses are not expecting a lot of rate cuts. What I do expect out of the Fed, and I believe Goldman had a report about this late last week,

is that they're going to start to get creative with their tools. So if they can't justify cutting rates in order to loosen monetary policy, they may start doing other things. They may slow down the pace of QT. They may start messing with where they reinvest on the curve and still affecting the market

but not using just rates as their tool. Yeah, Dani, you know, we've heard this again and again about the market broadening out, at least the stock market here, right, away from some of the concentrated holdings. And again, we're just going to start calling it the fateful eight here because Broadcom just made it in there. And it's just truly astounding to have a stock like that gain $200 billion in market cap. And we're going to dig into the guidance a little bit. But

know here we are shortly after the opening and and broad comes up another six percent right here you know it gapped up out of the gate and just think about that 30 in two trading days on a guide that no one knows whether it's going to happen or not but if you look at the equal weight s p and that's what i want to bring it back to a little bit it's up 16 of the year it's basically up in line with the russell 2000 and so to me that doesn't really speak to too much of a broadening out i'm just curious your thoughts on that as we enter 2025 because

You know, these names, these trillion dollar names, multi-trillion dollar names, you know, just consider what happens to their multiples if they continue to be the leadership in next year into 2025. The funds have to now chase to your point. Now you got eight. Now you have to own Broadcom. You're at the end of the year seasonally. No one's going to ask questions. People can put off their concerns until next year to Liz's point.

The smaller mid cap names can't ignore rates. They can't ignore the Fed expectations. Those have to be built in. They're much more dependent on financing from other sources, right? Other than equity investors, which are coming into these large names. So I just think you're in the time of year right now where it's buy first, ask questions later. But to your point, Dan, you've been making for a long time is how much have we pulled forward

the expectations, not just on revenue and earnings growth, but on ownership in these names. And again, it becomes self-fulfilling on the way up, right? And rates are the key factor here for sure. Credit spreads have been tight, I mean, really tight. And I think you're going to hear that from the Fed this week, I think, in the press conference, maybe about how loose financial conditions might be. And one more thing, just on the bull bear indicators, the Citi Panic Euphoria Indexes, all these things are

near the highs. It can stay there for the rest of the year. So it's not going to take a lot, I think, Dan, to shift that sentiment. And then it's kind of show me stories if you get to a certain level on some of these large names for sure. Yeah. And Liz, that's a great point that Danny just made. I mean, think about a Tesla, right? That's got now nearly a $1.5 trillion market cap. It's up 2% today after having a monster week last week. I think it closed 4.5% just on Friday alone. The stock has gone from 250 the day of the election to nearly 450

in a straight line in a little more than a month. And just do the math there, that's a half a trillion dollars in market cap. We just talked about Broadcom moving up 30% in two trading days. And then you think about these eight stocks and throw the 10 in there, it's basically 40 some percent of the weight of the S&P 500. Again, people, that's an index of 500 stocks.

and 10 of them make up 40% of the weight. We had David Rosenberg of Rosenberg Research on the pod Friday, and I think he mentioned that 40% weighting, it's far greater as you can imagine. I think the average over the last 50 years has been like 20 to 25% or so of the top 10 holdings.

Liz, when you think about that, I just see a lot of really unnatural action in the market. And just I just don't know how folks don't start out January with a bit more trepidation that they've had at any point this year in 2024. Well, I think still a powerful force is sentiment and people are not.

adopting the trepidatious stance. But to your point about concentration, we've been covering this for a number of months now. I think there was a report again out by Goldman a number of months ago suggesting 3% annual returns. And part of that argument was that concentration was so high. So is that unnatural? Yes, I absolutely think that's unnatural. I think it runs the risk of people being

mispositioned for really any environment that could come to pass. And I do think that there's going to be volatility in 2025 led by some of the political rhetoric and the idea that

We've decided basically that all of these policies are going to happen and come to fruition and they're all going to have a positive effect on the economy and a positive effect on the market. What if they don't or what if they don't come to fruition exactly the way that we've already expected them to? So I do think there's going to be volatility around that. The only thing I'll say is.

as sort of a devil's advocate to this is that in December we've seen this reversal of factors. So you saw the mega caps come back into the forefront, people are buying again. It's almost as if everything that led for the first 11 months of the year got ignored and now we bought the other stuff. So there's this reversal and that does sometimes tend to happen in December. People reposition, they take profits, they move around. So let's not get too committed to thinking that it's gonna continue that way

January and February are usually months, too, in the beginning of a new year where we start to see some surprising activity in investor behavior. Yeah. And so, Dani, I just want to talk about this really quickly. So, you know, rotations are interesting to me, you know, on a sector level, but we're seeing one within the sector of semiconductors, especially, you know, with that gains from Broadcom, you know, last week into today. NVIDIA is down about 13 percent or so from its post earnings high last month, which I think is pretty interesting, except for the fact that

It goes to, you know, speaks to the concentration in that name, right? So you have Broadcom give the guidance that they did, I think on like a $55 billion revenue number, maybe a little more than 10 billion were related to AI chips. They're talking about a TAM by the end of 2027 of maybe 60 to $90 billion, right? And if they're one of the three players or so that have access to the biggest buyback

and we know who those are, the hyperscalers, it's Amazon, it's Google, it's Meta, and it is Amazon. You know, you say to yourself, OK, that's why the stock is rallying right now. But when you see this sort of dispersion within the semiconductor space, you see Taiwan Semi disregarding any geopolitical issues, obviously, as they are the maker of high-end GPUs. Micron's reporting Wednesday after the close. I think consensus is calling for a miss to that quarter. But all

Do all they have to do is give some sort of crazy tam about data centers going three, four years out? Yeah, for sure. I feel like it's the game show, which I think has come back press through luck, big bucks, no whammies. This is the time of year where you're like, all right, the thing's going on. I'm like, just please, no whammies, just big bucks here. But to your point, coming out of NVIDIA and going into Broadcom is not an unhealthy thing.

We've seen a little scare in smaller names like SMCI, which like, you know what? I don't need to play my theme in AI by using that. I can broaden it out and go to other things. So I don't see that as an unhealthy thing. I actually see that as a healthy thing. But people readjusting, positioning, obviously in the year-end here is I think all we're really seeing. But you make a great point.

point, Dan, is that give people an excuse to buy the stock or hold it versus selling is kind of the key here. Now, all the good management teams know that that's a fool's goal, that that's just temporary. These are good management teams for the most part. They know how to kind of go through earnings and so forth. But a lot of key earnings, you're right, coming up actually this week, which we're going to hear about, which may even portend more for the economy and

and for the chip industry as well. Yeah, we'll get to those in a second. But Microsoft is one that we've highlighted just sticks out like a sore thumb to me. It just has massively underperformed the mega cap stocks and the NASDAQ and the S&P. It's up about 20% on the year. The stock just actually had a big rally in the last month from under 420 to about 446%.

where it is right now. When you think about all these expectations for increased TAM, it has to come from a company like Microsoft. It has to come from Amazon. It has to come from Meta. It has to come from Google. And all these names, NVIDIA, Broadcom, they have massive customer concentration among those names, right? So at least 30, in some instances, over 40%. So again, Microsoft is going to be very interesting into the new year, maybe a bit of a canary in the coal mine, but you're seeing money that moved out of one of the first

beneficiaries of this generative AI trade in Microsoft. And you're also seeing it right now, at least for the time being, in NVIDIA. Liz, when we think about the new year, what are some sectors that you're kind of excited about? I know a lot of these strategists have come out and they're saying, well, we like cyclicals, we like high quality growth. And the high quality growth is getting kind of difficult.

because of the multiple expansion that we've seen over the course of this year. And I'm just curious, are there any groups that you're looking at that you think their earnings potential growth in 2025 is underappreciated? Healthcare, absolutely healthcare. And I know right now we've got a lot baked into healthcare online.

On the negative side, because of the Bobby Kennedy nomination and a bunch of other things that are going on with companies that are dependent on just one type of drug. But you've got health care earnings in 2025 that are expected to be 20 percent versus this year's 5 percent.

So even if they come in below that, even if they disappoint, they're expected to be the second best sector in the market. And with all of this bad news baked in, I think that could end up surprising a lot of investors. You also have to look at some of the other big reversals that are going to happen year over year. So materials, for example, earnings in 2024 are negative.

but materials expected to be double-digit positive in 25. Industrials, earnings were pretty low, expected to be double-digit positive. So there are these reversals going on throughout the market that I think you have to heed. And especially if we're talking about companies that are high-quality companies,

outperforming, the ones that are high quality are also the ones that have a fundamental basis to be bought. They're not the ones that are being bought just because of risk appetite or because of multiple expansion. So earnings, I think, are going to matter tremendously in 2025. Yeah, Dani, you know, it's interesting, and you flagged something when I get to the GLP-1s this week. I think the XLV, the ETF that tracks the healthcare space

looks really interesting for all the reasons that Liz just mentioned. And sentiment, most importantly, the largest component in the XLV is Eli Lilly, about 12% or so. We know that, you know, this was a very concentrated trade between them and Novo Nordisk. Novo is not in this ETF, but around the GLP-1 thing. And, you know, both of those stocks have come off dramatically from their highs a few months ago. So when I think about, you know, an XLV, I think about the

potential for some of these underappreciated pharma companies, but it's also led by this big megatrend. Thoughts there? Because I think you flagged some big news that is likely to impact Eli Lilly and Novo this week. Yeah. So the big news is obviously FDA is going to talk about on Thursday whether there is a, quote, shortage of these drugs or not. And the irony is

If there is a shortage, which you would think would be a positive for the pricing for Lillianova, that means that these compound pharmacies and other producers get the green light to flood the market, so to speak. So it hurts pricing. Good for the consumer, particularly bad for these healthcare companies. So something to watch there. When you look at the XLV, to Liz's point, I really think you have to break down healthcare. There are six factors.

eight subsectors within that. And when you think about politics around healthcare right now, the assassination of UnitedHealthcare CEO, what that could mean, big tech falls in. This is also kind of big healthcare. Is there going to be a breakup or antitrust concerns with the drug stores and these PBMs and ownership? So a lot there, but I think a tremendous

stock picking opportunity within the XLV itself. And again, I think longs and shorts within there. So certainly a sector that's going to be very, very active. And I think active stock pickers within the sector can do very well here in 2015. Yeah, and to your point about active stock picking, I mean, Novo Nordisk, you know, the stock

It wasn't a guy down by any means, but consensus estimates were kind of right there in line what they gave. And I think a lot of investors were disappointed. But from its highs in late June to its recent lows, I mean, the stock went from $145 down to $100. It's bounced a little bit, so it's down 27.5%. And I think it's been de-risked a little bit, especially if you have some sort of negative outlook.

announcement on the compounding. The other thing that's really interesting, we had Zach Rotano, a good friend of ours, who's the CEO founder of Rowe on Fast Money last week, and they did a deal with Lilly Direct. So Lilly makes, obviously, Ozempic and Zepbound, and they are offering a $400 price point. It is not a

pen, but it's much cheaper. So $400 a month versus let's say, you know, 11, $1,200 a month in the pen format. That's essentially the way that you would give yourself a compound. You get a little vial and you have a needle. And so I just feel like that if the pen and there was supplies of the pen, which were some of the bottlenecks here, not as much of the drug,

This could be actually very good for Lilly. And then if, you know, Nova were to do something similar. So all it speaks to is probably increased supply and lower prices, and that might be able to kind of stimulate some demand. So maybe Lilly is the first beneficiary of that, especially if they get that negative ruling on compounding. But we will see. Hey, Liz, I wanted to ask you about energy.

Because this is one, when you think about the incoming administration and then the incoming treasury secretary, I don't know where they come up with this number, but they're talking about drilling 3 million more barrels a day. Right now we're doing about 11 million. And by the way, I think that's the highest that we've ever been, higher than any time during the Trump administration. So if you were to see more...

more drilling and lower prices what does that mean for the energy sector in general and i don't i read something where they're not sure if that number is talking also about natural gas but energy has been a sector that at one point this year was trading very well and now it's not back to also the earnings conversation here energy is a sector that was pretty negative earnings growth in 2024 expected to be marginally positive in 25 nothing to write home about but marginally positive

The drill, baby, drill approach to this is, I think, what a lot of people are trying to figure out. Can it actually happen? You don't just flip a lever and say, OK, go drill and create three million barrels more a day. You have to find the land for that. There are a lot of different steps you have to go through. You need the employees to actually do that. You need the time to do the refinery. There's a lot of different things that go into it. And it's not free.

So there's going to be a cost to do that if that is in fact the plan. It's not something that we're just going to be able to start on February 1st. So I still think there's a lot to be learned about it. The cyclicality of energy is something that I think the sector has going for it into 2025.

I'm okay with energy as a sector. I'm not pounding the table to buy it hand over fist. I think it can do okay in 2025. I don't think it's going to kick out huge returns and be the leader in the index because of some of these limits. And again, if we're producing more supply and energy is such a supply-demand game, you would need a lot of demand to drive energy prices up considerably. So I don't think that there's going to be a ton of

U.S. movement in prices that's going to drive a lot of profits for these companies. But what it does do, if we are successful in drilling more, is it insulates us from political turmoil that goes on in the Middle East. We continue to be more energy independent and less volatile in the U.S. because of whatever may happen next.

across the pond. There was a major shift in the last three to four years when banking was dead and nothing was happening. The one thing that happened was M&A within the energy sector, not only massive M&A, small. And I think this time around in a cycle or you're going to produce more whatever,

These companies are much better positions. Their balance sheets have never been healthier. So I think the energy companies themselves have the ability to kind of maneuver and extract the maximum earnings that they can off of any cycle. And I think the energy sector, much like the healthcare sector, has kind of been left behind

And as long as we don't go into recession, I think that sector will have a pretty decent year coming up what we saw this last year in 2020. Yeah, it's hitting an early October Exxon, which is obviously the largest component of the XLE was making new all-time highs. Since then, it's down about 11%, 12%. It's come back to a level in around 110. It's where it kind of bottomed in June and where it bottomed in September. You know, it's got a 3.5% yield. That one could be...

interesting to me if, you know, the sentiment switches as we get into the new year. I'm just surprised the sentiment got so bad in the last month or so when we've seen other sectors do so poorly. If you think about just how things line up with this new administration, you know, to me, this one seems kind of interesting. All right, let's hit a

couple names that are reporting this week. And Nike, first and foremost, Liz, when you think about it, I'm not asking you to opine on the name. This has been a massive underperformer. A lot of folks think it's a tie or at least the exposure that it has to China. It's down about 27% on the year, very near multi-year lows. And when we think about the China stimulus, they're trying to target

the consumer. The consumer is obviously over levered to, you know, property market, which has just been a disaster and not likely to get better anytime soon. How are you thinking about some of these multinational consumer names that have that exposure? Because again, this seems one where people have been chasing underperformers. It's kind of been a dash for trash and Nike can't get out of its own way.

Since the election, consumer discretionary stocks have seen some interesting action. And first of all, we know what my take is on China. I do think China will continue to stimulate. I think this retail sales number that was weak today is going to be a big deal. And it's another reality check that the consumer in China is in trouble and needs stimulus. I think they will get it.

over time. And I think that China will continue to do this until they get what they want, which is more growth, a healthier consumer and some activity. But consumer discretionary stocks, first of all, I would not buy them or sell them simply based on what might happen with the Chinese consumer.

This also has to be based on what's going to happen in the U.S. And again, I'm not going to give single name recommendations, but you can look at something like what's happened with Lululemon. Lululemon is still down considerably on the year, but it's up almost 24 percent in the last month. And that's since earnings. There's been this big turnaround in

in the price action I think that these stocks are poised to have big price swings based on earnings and based on some surprise information and a lot of times when you have a stock I think I use this phrase last week about health care as a sector if you have a a stock or a sector or something where

You've got most of the bad news priced in. Sometimes it's time to step in because maybe it can't get much worse from here. Nike, obviously, changing CEO. Certainly the stock ran on that. It's come back in here. Concerns that Liz just talked about on China in general, concerns about tariffs, which could...

impact them. You're going to get a pretty good picture of the consumer this week, a little bit, you know, with not just Nike, but FedEx, I think coming in here and then one of the largest home builders we're going to get from Lenar. And again, all those have different factors, but the bottom line is this, the consumer has been very selective on where they've been spending their money and the companies that have been able to adjust and offer products

whether that's a restaurant or goods, whatever, to catch some of those trends, you've seen the winners and the losers separate. So again, I would argue that within consumer discretionary and within the ETFs that control it, there are winners and losers, and it's a great stock picking environment there. But some of these companies face more geopolitics than others do, and they have to manage that globally. So I think people want simple is better coming in and want to own the stories that they can really understand and not have to deal with all the geopolitical noise that's out there.

Yeah, that's a great point. I think Nike is probably a little washed out, in my opinion. The sentiment is just so bad and it's just been so tied to China. And I also think that, Danny, you just mentioned a new CEO. I think they might have kitchen sink some stuff enough where the company can beat. And then in this environment, maybe it plays a little catch up. Another name that actually did that a couple months ago when they installed

a new CEO with Starbucks. And I just think it's interesting that today Starbucks is down, I suspect, on the China news. And then today they also hired for the first time ever a China growth officer. So that is Starbucks. So again, I would expect a lot of these multinationals to kind of speak to the potential for growth if we were to see added stimulus and a comeback from a Chinese consumer. All right, guys, we covered

a lot of ground here. Danny Moses, really appreciate you being here early on a Monday. Liz Thomas, thanks for being here. You will be back with me on Wednesday on the Market Call at 1 p.m. Guy Adami in parts unknown, people. We're not going to dox him, but he's going to be back.

in a week from today. So we look forward to having Guy back. Hopefully he gets some well-needed R&R. Guys, thanks so much for being here. One last thing. Stick around for that conversation that Guy and I had with Ron Biscardi, the CEO of iConnections and the COO, Caitlin Mallon.

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Welcome.

Welcome to a special On the Tape podcast, Dan. You know why it's special? Tell me. Because we have Ron Biscardi, the founder and CEO of iConnections, along with Caitlin Malin, the COO of iConnections, in the office with us right now. That is very special. I didn't mean to be glib about that. Hey guys, thanks for being here. It's like returning to the On the Tape podcast. Yeah, super exciting. Thank you for having us. Are you kidding me? A lot of exciting things going on at iConnections. Now you're coming off...

a conference in the Far East. Are you allowed to say that still? I think you are, yes. Yeah, well, that's where you were. So let's start with that because that was a huge and very successful conference, Caitlin. Yeah, absolutely. I was there on the ground. It's grown. This is our third year in Singapore and the event basically doubled in size from last year. So we had 230 fund managers and

and basically the same number of allocators as well and in the end we did over 3 000 meetings so huge success definitely seeing a lot of interest in our format the one-on-one meetings the cap intro it continues to grow our brand is definitely solidified there we saw you know the split between allocators that were based in the us and europe relative to asia the asia-based numbers continued to grow there's close to 80 percent of the lps there that were

in the APAC region and another 20 from, like I said, US and Europe. So really strong turnout, super excited. Which is remarkable. And we're going to talk about, obviously, the one that we will all be at in Miami Beach at the end of January. But talk about that growth. And then next year, what do you think, what type of growth do you expect? Because

The proof of concept is clearly there in terms of this business. Yeah, I mean, I think what's fascinating about what we do at the CAP Intro event is that you really get a snapshot in all of the different regions in terms of what is interesting from a strategy perspective. The meetings that the LPs take are a reflection of what's

likely to come and flows in the next two to three years from there, if not sooner. So this year in Asia, we saw that event driven was strongly represented global macro funds, not surprisingly, just given what's going on broadly and, you know, geopolitically, and then also multi strats, which I feel like is not that surprising. But

To me, what will be interesting is looking at that and then seeing how it changes relative to Miami, where it's not as much, like I said, 80% of the attendees were APAC-based. So it may skew that. So, Ron, you're sitting here hearing Caitlin talk about that conference. When you started this...

Your vision many, many years ago in your wildest dreams, did you think you get the kind of numbers you get? Now I'm teeing you up with that question, I know, but you have a vision, but then when you see it come to fruition and probably grow in ways you never imagined, speak to that.

For sure. I mean, we feel incredibly fortunate to be in the spot we're in. I mean, we're only four years old and I guess we'll be five this April. And we are far and away the biggest Cap Intro platform in the world right now. When we started, you know, people, the conferences have done so incredibly well that it's sort of, it dominates the fact that we actually are a tech company at the core of this.

And we started as a tech company. What created iConnections really was the need in the midst of the pandemic for LPs and GPs to connect electronically because they couldn't get together in person anymore. So we've really built on that platform. And even though the events are what we're known for primarily,

You can't run events at this scale without the tech that sits at the center of them. And we're really excited to be pushing the boundaries of what the tech can do. So we started purely as a Capintro platform, but over the last year, we've added a

a whole set of new features that ultimately will result in us being, we believe, the dominant alternatives investment platform. So we now have a roadshow module, which funds and LPs can use when they're traveling around the world, trying to meet each other, set those up in advance. If they're going to another conference, they can use that module to set up meetings around that conference. We have an investor portal that allows all the people who come into these meetings and meet with each other. You know, we did

probably 25,000 meetings this year alone across everything we've touched. That investor portal enables the LPs and GPs to stay connected really in perpetuity. As long as they're members of the platform, that's one of the features that comes with it. We're also rolling out later this month automated subdocs, which will also connect to external KYC systems so that LPs can

subscribe to a fund directly through the system funds can load their sub docs and digitize them and just eliminate the PDFs that are being emailed basically I mean it's it's kinda crazy we are in the middle of an industry that's running 15 16 trillion dollars and so much of those flows

are transacted through PDFs and email. We did a survey a couple years ago which prompted us to kind of go in this direction, and I believe it was 78% of funds who responded. And it was a meaningful survey. I want to say, what was it, about 350? - I think it was about, yeah, just over 300. - Funds that we asked. 78% of funds said they didn't have any electronic system to facilitate the sub-doc process. They were all doing it through PDFs and email.

It's crazy to think how this industry is behind so much technological innovation, but yet it's not really using and getting the benefit of a lot of those innovations. So we think given the fact that we have captured a huge percentage of the alt industry in our system for these events, we just want to keep bringing them more and more capabilities to help both GPs and LPs advance their businesses. Yeah.

So, Ron, you just mentioned that you're going to become the dominant platform if you're not already. And I remember going back 20 years ago, I was at a multi-strat fund. We were small. And I remember what it was like raising capital. You're hitting up all your prime brokers, right? The cap interest stuff.

It wasn't particularly a high hit rate. We spent a lot of time in London. We had folks from Switzerland coming over. It was a real process and it took a long time. Give us a sense of like how you've streamlined these processes. You mentioned the events, you mentioned how many meetings that you have, but once you have that networking aspect, once you kind of match LPs with GPs, what happens there? Because I assume the tech

platform is a really big part of it. You just mentioned a bunch of other things that a lot of these clients are able to utilize and you keep launching new products and services. But how does it go from there once the folks leave Global Alts in Miami? And then how does the transactions happen? So this is very much a long haul business. This isn't stuff that people buy quickly. I mean, of course, the biggest funds in the world, they'll come to one of our events and they may get tickets

two quarters, three quarters later. But I'd say that's the exception, not the rule. This is a business where if you're a fund manager and you want to succeed in the asset management world, you have to be in it for the long haul.

And what we're trying to do with our platform is keep LPs in particular in the system and connected to the system as much and as often as possible because we know that even when they come and they have meetings at our events and they may come and do 20, 30 meetings, that's great.

It's very likely that it'll be a period of years before they cut a check to any of the people they met. So our job, as we see it, is to try and keep those two communities as connected as possible. And frankly, the roadshow module, we believe, is going to be one of the keys to doing that. Making it possible for LPs and GPs to both use that whenever they're traveling around the world, it just helps facilitate that.

creating more meetings throughout the year, and also enabling them to go into the system and see, wait a second, I met this fund. I remember they said they were from London. I met them two years ago at Global Alts. Who was that again? You can go right into the system, see your whole history. Oh yeah, that was the guy. Let me send them a meeting request, send them the roadshow details so they can see I'm going to be in town in two months. Let's get a meeting confirmed.

It's doing things like that, just putting ourselves always in the seat of both parties, the GPs and LPs, and trying to give them features and just platform access that will help make their jobs easier, help them stay connected as much as possible. We think that's a huge element.

And then if we do that well, the transactional piece isn't really that hard. You know, that piece should really take care of itself. A lot of moving parts. We've gotten to know so many members of the senior team and a lot of members of just the on-the-ground team as well. But I would submit, and you don't have to respond to this, Ron, but one of the most critical hires you made was Caitlin, without question. And if you think about- This is true, guys. Well, it is true. And not just because she's in the studio. Well, no, because I know the-

the impact it had and the necessity to hire the right person at the point you were at, and now you think about the growth over that period of time, being chief operating officer of this group, I mean, that's a big job. So speak to your, not that there's a typical day, but your team and sort of what your focus has been over the last couple years. Yeah, no, it's certainly been a busy couple of years, but I think I have the benefits of coming from marketing at a fund and someone who went to these conferences. So

What's now fun is that we're building a business to find solutions, like Ron said, for these types of challenges. But I live them firsthand. I know how annoying it is when you go to plan a roadshow and you're trying to look up, you know, where's this in Michigan and how do I get to Detroit and how many cars am I taking? So when we're solving for that, it's fun to build that. And part of the hat I wear is the product hat where we're thinking through those software solutions. We want things to not just work, but we also want them to look beautiful for people that are using them. We're in the modern day era.

era of apps that we're used to that are really functional. So that's a big part of it. And then of course the other big piece is Miami and Global Alts and running these events. We've seen the event close to probably, what is it, triple in size I'd say since the first year. Our staff has tripled in size since the first year. So we're growing as well and just being a part of helping to build that out and really building the brand and the reputation that we now have across the entire spectrum of the industry, not just Hedge, not just a Liquid Strategies,

It's just it's been really fun. Yeah. Give us a sense, because I'm looking at the website here and we are privy to some of the speakers and these are all public here. But like Howard Marks, Steve Cohen, Todd Boley, David Rubenstein, these are all people that are actually on stage speaking to these thousands of folks that are there to do all of the important stuff, which is the the meetings and stuff.

Where have you guys seen a lot of the growth? Because I just mentioned those guys and they manage, you know, like, you know, lots that probably among them, maybe a trillion, you know, Carlisle a little differently because that's kind of where you get seen a lot of growth because you started this thing a few years, obviously four years ago. It was like kind of a lot of multistrats, but now it's like private credit. It's like, you know, yeah, I would say the private market side of the business has grown really nicely. And I think that's happened because

Cap intro isn't a natural part of the private markets ecosystem. In hedge funds, the prime brokers created cap intro years and years ago when they realized, hey, it's in our interest to help our fund clients raise money that's more trading revenue to the bank.

So they created that feature, if you will, to the prime brokerage business. And then in order to be competitive in that world, everyone had to have Capintro. So when we entered the business initially, hedge funds were 100% of the funds in attendance. And this is going back to when I first started in this business 10 years ago. But now –

we've really penetrated private markets. We're getting hundreds of private equity, private credit, real estate, venture funds. In combination, that'll make up probably 400 to 500 funds in the event this year. So they generally come to the event and it's a, oh my God, I didn't know this was a thing.

You know, they're doing small versions of it in like little pockets around the country, but nothing even close to the scale of what we're doing at Global Alts. So we're definitely spending a lot of time trying to further educate that market and just get exposure there. Venture...

We're constantly trying to penetrate the venture market. It's tough because they raise money episodically, I guess you could say. But yeah, overall, I'd say private markets is super exciting for us. And also, I think it's about to become one of the most exciting periods in fundraising for private markets, maybe for everyone. But definitely, I think for private markets, because I think there's so much optimism about 25.

hopefully, knock on wood, the IPO market starts to open up. And when that happens, there are a lot of LPs who have been putting pressure on their fund managers

to not go raise that next fund just yet because the LPs are really in need of exits in order to fund those future capital calls. So an IPO market or an M&A boom, you know, combination of both hopefully, will start to really loosen things up. And I think because we have been in one of the toughest fundraising periods. Yeah.

in the last two or three years? - I was gonna say that about venture because everyone I talk to, they think 2025 is gonna be a bonanza. There was a lot of capital that was raised in '21, but there was also a cycle pre-COVID where there was a lot of investment. Now, the focus on generative AI in the private markets is so massive. And look at some of the rounds that we've seen. Some of these companies,

OpenAI is raising at $150 billion. And so I just think that once that capital is returned through exits, there's going to be a bonanza of VC. And it sounds like you're just kind of scratching the surface on that area. You know, I think so. I also think with the new administration coming in,

It's just gonna mix things up in DC. I think we're gonna see certainly, if they live up to half of the promises that are being made, I think the regulatory infrastructure will shrink. I think that's probably gonna be good for deals for sure.

I think a change at the FTC, I have to believe, will result in more M&A activity than we've seen under the Biden administration. So, you know, hopefully the combination of these things will really, you know, kind of unleash the markets and

It'll be a nice fundraising explosion. The conference in Miami is Monday, the 27th of January through the 30th, which is Thursday. They're going to be north of 5,000 people there. You have some of the numbers. Now, I've been to dozens of conferences over my life. A lot of times these are just you go for fun, you're hanging out, you meet some people. This conference is a lot of fun without question. There's some great things to do, but I've used the word. I'll use it again. It's extraordinarily transactional and things get done.

So speak to that, what you've seen prior and what you expect at the end of January. For those that don't know, the way that we run the conference, I think in and of itself is a little unique. Most conferences you go to, you can pop in, hear some speakers, maybe you're networking, trying to catch someone at the coffee bar. We do it completely differently. One day entirely dedicated to content. So you'll see all of the speakers will have four stages this year. But that's it. That's the day that you get to hear from amazing names that Dan mentioned.

After that, the next two days, solely one-to-one meetings. And that's where the software really comes into play because you're not trying to book meetings once you show up. You show up knowing exactly what your schedule is. The software, the platform, you're doing all of the searching if you're a fund or an allocator, you're confirming the meetings in advance so that when you show up, you know exactly where you're going and you have a pretty much full schedule if you do it right.

That's where it's unique. Last year, we had just over 15,000 meetings. I think we'll probably track close to hopefully 17,000 this year, if not more. That's when you hear that reputation of it being highly productive. And it's down to the wire. We calculate your walking distance. We're moving this year to the

the convention center. Part of that is because the event continued to grow and navigating, walking from one hotel to another, as you can imagine, gets complicated. But I think people really value that we're thinking of every little detail to make sure that you're not just meeting people saying hello. It's actually a value add conversation and also why a lot of the portfolio managers are down there too. So Ron, dollars and cents now, you want to get granular in terms of

You know, I know last year you probably got it down to the dollar, how many transactions were done in terms of... But how many dollars are there in the first place? Those types of things, because I think people will be shocked by the magnitude of the numbers. Yeah, the numbers are pretty staggering. I mean, obviously, they're skewed by some of the huge firms that'll attend, you know, like a Blackstone or a Carlyle or BlackRock. But...

We have generally somewhere between 20 and 30 trillion represented in the room. 20 and 30 trillion dollars. Yes. Managed collectively by the attendees in the building. We are...

Super excited, by the way, about a partnership that we're just launching this year with the Managed Funds Association, which is adding even more to that number because the Managed Funds Association is really the largest trade association in the alts industry. And they have, as their members, some of the biggest funds in the world, you know.

Citadel, Two Sigma, really the largest and for sure some of the most sophisticated. In our partnership with MFA, they had a competing event in essence. I mean, we never really saw each other as competitors because we're running a software business and an event business. They're a trade association. But nonetheless, our events overlapped on the same days. So we approached them. I had several conversations with Brian Corbett, the CEO of MFA, who's

a fabulous guy. And we agreed, it just didn't make sense to do this separately. So we combined forces and that is working out incredibly well. Now the event is really today an index of the whole ALT industry. We have small funds that are 50 million, 100 million in AOM, and we have the biggest fund managers in the world who are MFA members and board members there.

So we're really excited about that addition to this because now it's also made it much less complex because it is fun. You're right. It's a fun place to be, Miami in January, never the worst. But this is like serious hard work. Yes, it is. You know, you come down to an event, you do a day of content spread across four stages. You're bopping all over the place. That's the easy day. The next two days where you're cranking through –

20 meetings, 30 meetings. I mean, some LPs are now sending entire teams and each person on that team is doing 20, 25 meetings. Companies are collectively putting out, you know, 100, 150 meetings. We've never seen like these levels before. So we think...

putting it all in one building, not having two schedules, not having people running from one event to another, which was happening. It's just streamlining the whole experience and, you know, we couldn't be more excited about it. You know, it's interesting. I love seeing you guys on like day three, because a lot of folks are ready to kind of blow off some steam at the end of some of these long days. You guys are still working and you guys have been working for months ahead of time. So it must be absolutely exhausting. I hope you guys get to decompress at some point in February.

But one of the things that Guy and I have always found really interesting about these events, I think the first one we did with you guys, it was your crypto event. And it was in Miami. It was amazing. And I remember us talking ahead of time. Bitcoin had been cut in half. And we were like, you know, might this be a dicey period? And when we got on the ground and we were doing some of the stuff on stage, but we met a lot of people, the level of optimism there is...

It actually shocked us because Wall Street was super bearish. But then you get to and, you know, the media was really bearish. And then you get there and you meet the people that are heads down. They're building. They're also investing. We walked away being like, oh, my goodness, it doesn't feel nearly as bad as what we hear on CNBC. And then we've also found that, you know, in 2022, because the market had a really tough year, you know,

you know, there was a lot of bearishness about a lot of the asset classes that you just mentioned. And then in 2023, there was a lot of skepticism as the market was taking off. But so I find the sentiment really interesting. And I also find that amongst a lot of the participants there, they're getting a read on their markets. They're getting a read on other markets. Talk to us a little bit about that, because I know you spend a lot of time with these market participants. So digital assets is super interesting. It gets dissed all the time in a

million different ways, and then everyone shows up and takes meetings with these funds. The first year, that digital asset event that we did together- - That was the bottom, by the way. - Right, it was the bottom. And I think that was '22, right? That was June of '22. The Miami in January of '22, we had 17 digital asset funds in that event who got 800 meetings combined.

We'd never seen anything like that, such a small percentage of funds in this little category that everyone made fun of got 800 meetings. So clearly, the institutional investors were using those meetings to come up to speed and get educated.

Unfortunately, we don't see what the flows are after the event. We're working on ways we can do that. But obviously, that's an amazing sign when you're getting that volume of activity. This year, we have 47 digital asset funds. So my sense is digital assets has done a pretty amazing job of navigating, I mean, one of the worst bear markets I've ever seen in a category. Well, think about how much market cap has been gained since mid-2022. I think-

a trillion and a half or so just in Bitcoin. You know what I mean? What I find interesting about digital assets and your event called Global Alts, it's obviously, it is like the epicenter of

of an alternative investment. And I think that's one of the reasons why so many folks are interested in, look at the alpha that has been created. But when you think about innovation, I mean, this is where the most innovation, I think we'll look back and say, this ecosystem was really interesting. Do you get a read on that? Because you said you just doubled or tripled the amount of digital asset funds that are there. Do you get a read on, from some of these traditional managers, BlackRock, they launched an ETF, they're going to be there. What's the

What do you expect for that? Is that going to be one of the biggest growth areas? Private credit has been huge, but is this one going forward? We just opened the scheduling system a week ago, maybe two weeks ago. So there's not enough activity in there yet to really know if there's a trend to be seen. In another two weeks, managers actually just got access today. LPs got access two weeks ago. In another two weeks, I'll be able to give you a sense of

as to where the meetings are going. But my guess is we're going to see a really nice uptick in digital assets. They did okay in January of 24, but just based on the signups we're seeing, sponsorship inquiries, things like that, I think we're going to see a really nice uptick. And I think there's clearly more optimism. Again, going back to my comments on the regulatory infrastructure, I think the Trump administration is...

very clearly headed towards embracing it in a way the Biden administration didn't. So that has to be good for these guys. Caitlin, I'm going to tee you up a little bit, but I know your ability to answer this question I know is right there for you. So the amount of success stories that you've seen, the anecdotal feedback you get from funds and allocators that have gone to the conferences, that's truly where I think you feel like we're making a difference here. So speak to that.

It's completely true. We have our sales team, our account management team, the investor relations team. They're the ones that are boots on the ground firsthand hearing feedback. And I think what's really exciting is that people actually want to tell us, hey, I've been going to your event for three years and I've raised this much money and I'm telling you about it. Right. They want to share. They see the value in what they're doing. And that comes in, of course, in the weeks coming after.

and leading up to Miami, but year-round as well when we're having these conversations. So that's, to me, what's really exciting is just seeing that come in. We don't have a formal way yet to track this. We're on our way. But informally, we're close to, and Ron, correct me if I'm wrong, but just over $1.05 billion in total assets raised from just what we've heard. And that's...

And that's from a very small sample, because the vast majority of fund managers and LPs, of course, they come to the event, great. They go back, they're running their businesses, they're busy people. We don't want to bother them. So we're not kind of on top of everyone trying to collect this data. We're working on ways to kind of automate that process.

I can tell you some of the numbers are just staggering. You know, we had one large fund of funds last year tell us they allocated half a billion dollars. This was actually two Miamis ago, so January of 23. We frequently get updates from funds who tell us they got a $20 million ticket, a $50 million ticket, a $100 million ticket. So we know our estimate, you know, if we take that sample and try and apply it

in a probably less scientific way than we should. But if you apply it to the overall event, we are guessing there's a pretty strong case that north of 10 billion is probably changing hands following an event the scale of Manny. I think that's probably fair. And you're building this conference out, but you're not building it with new additions. You're building it off a strong base. My sense is

The retention rate for people that have come since inception is probably north of 95. That's a guess, but I'm probably right. Yeah, the retention rate is very high. It's also correlated to how the fund is performing. If a fund isn't performing well and they don't think they'll be successful in a marketing effort, they may skip a year.

But we analyzed this data this year pretty intensely. And we found that 63% of funds who have at least one meeting come back. So that's a pretty good renewal rate off of someone who, you know, we would view one meeting as pretty- It's a failure. Right. That's a total failure. When you get into the meeting averages, which are more like 17, 18 per fund, the renewal rates are deep into the 80s.

So it's, you know, it just works. It's working for both the LPs and the GPs. And I think as long as we keep making sure that they have a great experience and we help streamline what they do at the event, what they do after the event, you know, it'll continue to succeed. We also...

to add to that too, just using Asia as a recent example, we surveyed the allocators on site in Singapore just three weeks ago. And of those, it's actually, like I said, it doubled in size in the last year. So 40% of the people there were recurring attendees who had been before. We asked them if they had

allocated to a manager that they met at a global conference, 78% of them said yes, that they had. So a huge percentage, which I think speaks to not just the size of the tickets, but the number of allocations across all of the attendees that are going. - Yeah, it's really a testament, I think, to our IR team. So their job is to meet allocators

vet them, you know, we have to make sure everyone is accredited or qualified purchaser or you're not allowed in the room. And we want investors who are active. You could be accredited but not really doing much with your portfolio. We're really only allowing investors into the event who want to be in that room, they want to take meetings because they're looking for new things to add to their portfolio. That's a really important element. So you've been to Asia, you're obviously here in the United States.

You've been in the Middle East. Any growth in potentially the continent of Africa or Europe in general? What's next? So we're actually, the next event in terms of calendar is actually next week, believe it or not. We're partnered with ADGM for Abu Dhabi Finance Week, which is a big event.

Where we are running a small cap intro element inside of Abu Dhabi Finance Week So we're very excited about that. That's a new partnership for us But we've gotten to know the ADGM team over the last, you know, probably 18 months and they're amazing people What's happening in the Middle East the growth in the Middle East is just incredible they are doing a phenomenal job of attracting funds into the region and not just a

the way I'd say it was done 10 years ago. You'd fly in, you'd visit, you'd do a bunch of meetings and you leave. That's not how it's happening anymore. In the Middle East now, funds are opening offices in Abu Dhabi, in ADGM, and really building teams in that part of the world, not just for the purpose of raising money from that region, but for also deploying money into that region. And we've seen really throughout the GCC countries,

They want partners, not just funds who they're, obviously they have trillions of dollars. It's an incredibly wealthy part of the world.

and they need places to put that money, but they really want partners who will see funds really flow in both directions, both into fund vehicles that get invested around the world and also fund vehicles that'll look to do investments in the region. We're also looking at Europe. Europe is interesting.

Whenever we survey fund managers, overwhelming support for an event in Europe, not always as much support from the LPs. I think the LPs in Europe like to travel because whenever we ask them, they just generally seem less excited about it. So we're trying to figure that one out, but we would definitely like to do something in Europe. You know, our hope would be

we have ultimately three Miami scale events, you know, a five to 6,000 person event every year in Miami, a five to 6,000 person event in Asia and a five to six in Europe. I think that would be kind of the,

pinnacle of the business for us. You know, it's funny. I talked about sentiment a little bit. I think this year is going to be really special when you think about it starts a week after inauguration. Some of the things that you just mentioned about regulatory environment and, you know, think about some of these kind of captains of industry that are there going to be speaking, but also, you know, making their rounds in the meetings and like, and some of them got pretty vocal about some of those regulatory sort of stuff. So

To me, I think some of the content, especially when you consider some of the folks that have been nominated on the economic team and the like, there's going to be a lot of optimism. So I'm excited about that. This is just guy and me is kind of dumb content guys. We go down there and, uh,

We're just doing some podcasting, some TV, and all that sort of stuff. A little stage work, perhaps. For us, it's always really fun to speak to a lot of these people off the record, but also have them on the TV and the podcast mic. Guy, what are you most excited about? You always come away. You learn a lot when you're down there. We're down there for probably two and a half days or so. You meet people that you might not have met or catching up with people you may have worked with.

many years ago, but you always walk away with sort of a renewed understanding where people's investment dollars are going and what people are thinking about. So we get sort of outside our just looking at the S&P and individual stocks bubble, and we can sort of broaden it out over a two-and-a-half, three-day period. And I always walk away, I think,

a little smarter. Low bar for me, I know, but definitely a little bit smarter. Well, you might get smarter, Guy, but I'm already there. But no, it's exciting. And you guys have been great partners of ours. And it's been fun to watch this business grow the way it has. And I just can't believe, I mean, the first time we were there, we're at the one hotel. It was, you know, the digital assets one. You take it over to the, you know, Global Alts, and there's thousands of people there. Now you guys have gotten so big, you had to move to the convention center in Miami. So,

really exciting stuff. We really appreciate you guys coming here again. We appreciate the partnership. And, you know, Caitlin, you've become one heck of a podcaster here. So we appreciate your contribution around. So thanks, guys. Thank you, guys. It's always fun to be with you. And remember, we have a podcast studio set up in Miami. So feel free to come down and do some interviews. A little housekeeping real quickly before we get out of here. So you just mentioned you opened up some of the

bookings, the meetings sort of thing. When does registration end and what sort of capacity you guys have? Great point. So we're closing registration across the board for LPs and GPs on December 20th this year. And that's really to give our teams time to get all the meetings confirmed, get schedules, you know, solidified and get ready to go in and just throw a great event.

Ron, Caitlin, always great to see you both. Thanks for coming to the studio. Thanks for your partnership. Thanks for your friendship. We look forward to seeing you at the end of January. Same here. Thank you, guys. Thanks, guys.