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Andrew Brill sits down with Peter Boockvar, CIO of Bleakley Financial Group and author of ‘The Boock Report’ on Substack, to gather his expert insights on what lies ahead for a global economy facing multiple challenges. Peter also explores recent market volatility, Fed rate cut expectations, the fading hype in AI stocks, and why inflation may be more persistent than many expect—plus much more.

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Peter Boockvar  0:00  
I do think that things are moving in the direction of a 50 basis point cut. The AI hype phase, as I said, is over. Now it's again, the Show Me the Money phase. I think it's just gonna be a much choppier environment through the rest of the year.

Andrew Brill  0:20  
Welcome to wealthion. I'm your host. Andrew brill, let's hope this week brings a little less volatility than last. We'll talk about what to expect coming up with Peter Boockvar.

Like to welcome back a friend of wealthion. Peter Boockvar, Peter is the Chief Investment Officer at Bleakley financial. He's also the author of the book report, which comes out daily, Peter. Thanks so much for joining me after a volatile week last week. Yep, thanks for having me. So what's you know, with last Monday, the market going bonkers in the wrong direction, and then this week, or I guess for the rest of the week, it started to pick up. What's your take right now on the economy?

Peter Boockvar  1:03  
Well, on the economy, I think there. It's very much an uneven, mixed economy with some pros and some cons. I do think, though, and something that I've thought for the last couple of years, that this higher rate environment, which is less high but still higher than the 15 years pre 2022 is still having sort of a death by 1000 cuts impact on the global economy, in addition to the cumulative rise in inflation over the last couple of years, which is draining the savings of lower to middle income consumers. So I think there are a lot of sort of arrows pointing in many different directions in the economy. I think bringing it all together, just based on all the earnings that I've gone through over the past month, and we'll see some more over the next couple weeks, in terms of retail, that it just feels like an economy growing one to one and a half percent. And I know the estimates for q2 are around the two ish percent level. Atlanta Fed, even though it's still very early in the quarter, only halfway done is closer to three. But just it doesn't feel like that. And I think a lot of the government spending is distorting the overall picture in terms of its outsized influence on on the GDP calculation. 

Andrew Brill  2:30  
A lot to unpack. There now a heavy impact in the lower to middle income families, and that's where a lot of the unemployment comes in. Now the unemployment figure that we got Friday was better than expected, but they're still suffering. The middle to income families or middle lower to middle income families are still suffering. There's a lot of articles out there about people not being able to afford just the staples and stuff like that.

Peter Boockvar  2:58  
Yeah, that's where the greatest inflationary impact is being felt, but that's always the case. Is necessities and needs relative to wants is a higher percentage of of their income. And just shows you the the pernicious and damaging impact that inflation has. And you draw a trend line through inflation over the past 20 years, and just to visualize the extent at which we got above trend, you know, it's rather dangerous. And the Fed is actually lucky that rents were included in the CPI and PCE calculation, because if it was home prices, CPI would have well exceeded 10% in the summer of 2022 and while wage growth has been very good over the last couple of years, and in many cases, that has actually kept pace with the level of inflation, for some it has not, and I think that's why You hear a lot about value conscious budget, seeking consumers that are choiceful, and that also then gets into the importance of the stock market, because the higher income consumer is the one that's that's doing better. They're obviously much more immunized from inflation and benefiting from a 5% interest income on their savings, and a stock market that's had a big run here, at least, where at least, I should say, the tech driven S&P 500 and NASDAQ have had a good run. Everything else has been sort of left for dead. So if the stock market, for whatever reason, rules over, because people are worried about economic growth, the decline in the market can actually exacerbate any decline in economic growth. 

Andrew Brill  4:46  
Now, given the fact that there's a ton of money sitting on the sidelines, and a lot of the stock market is is run by these algorithms, and they hear one thing or something, starts to go down, they start to sell stuff, and that's what causes that that huge. Much drop or pickup, as we've also seen, but is it a lot of pension money and stuff like that that's in the market that is being played with by those algorithms that's causing these upward movements and downward movements? 

Peter Boockvar  5:15  
Well, the markets, since the history markets, is always on a day to day basis is emotionally driven. And yes, algos sort of run the trading now, but it's people's emotions and statistics that flow into those algos. There were less algos in the late 90s and early 2000s and it didn't stop craziness in the pace of trading when you mention cash on the sidelines. Well, we have to dissect that, because, on one hand, well, first of all, there's always cash on the sidelines, because every dollar that comes into the market, there's $1 coming out of the market via the seller. So defining that cash in the sidelines, there is elevated money in money markets, but that's money that has come from savings accounts that were that are paying still next to zero, unless you're in a CD and people are just trying to capture greater interest income in the money markets. That doesn't mean that that's $1 of fresh dry powder that's going to eventually switch into the stock market. That money is not going there, and it's at that savings money that people have put aside. So I think the just we need to sort of differentiate what that that cash is in money markets and and other interest bearing accounts.

Andrew Brill  6:36  
right now, with the volatility. I mean, just a couple weeks ago, or three weeks ago, the VIX was right around 12, and it jumped up to about, I don't know, 46 last Monday. Now it's in the right around 20.

Peter Boockvar  6:50  
It was actually 65 on Monday morning. 

Andrew Brill  6:52  
Did it go that high when I looked? It came I guess it had come down from when it when I looked. But is it safer right now, if you can't deal with the violent swings. Is it safer to put your money into a high interest savings account or something that's going to get you four and a half 5% it doesn't seem like a lot, considering the upside of the market, but if you're really, really nervous about the ups and downs of the market right now, where is someone safest?

Peter Boockvar  7:21  
Well, long term gains in the stock market are seven 8% well, you're halfway there by investing in a money market. So those that can't stomach This, then, yes, they should have less money in the stock market, because investing in the market a lot of times is all about time horizon, and if daily volatility bothers you, you should be less exposed to it. If it doesn't bother you, then sell offs in the market actually create cheaper stocks for you to buy. That's the interesting thing about the market is, as we know, if Walmart lowers prices, more people show up. If the NYSE lowers prices, everyone freaks out and vice versa. So it'll it all depends on your time horizon, when you, when you when you talk about, where is the best place to invest? I do think that outside of big cap tech and this whole AI trade, that we have been in a bear market for many stocks and that continues. Question is, is whether we come out of that bear market in those many stocks or to the big stocks, the AI driven stocks. Do they roll into a bear market and follow everything else? Because we have to remember that it was the AI trade that sort of gave them the headline indices, the s&p 500 the NASDAQ is second wind, but still wasn't enough to have other parts of the market really play along. So I think that's really the key question for this back half of the year. I'm more inclined to think that the big cat names sort of catch up on the downside. I think we're seeing evidence of that in the sense of people realizing that for many companies, the AI thing is is an expense rather than a revenue driver, and those that it's generating revenue for are a select few that have already done very well, and their prices have already sort of captured a lot of that enthusiasm.

Andrew Brill  9:16  
Are the interest rates, and we're maybe what, five weeks away, four or five weeks away from an interest rate cuts? That that the anticipation of the interest rate cut helped the small caps, and now that everybody thinks that rate cut is coming in September, will that you think that those small caps will continue to gain momentum?

Peter Boockvar  9:39  
Speaking my talking my book, I hope so, since we're along a bunch of small makeup stocks that will benefit from lower short term interest rates because of a lot of floating rate debt exposure, where sofr would go down, hopefully, and and their interest costs would as well. On the flip side, they still face the same. Challenge of slowing economic growth, that will be a mitigating factor. So it's very important to be careful and very stock specific with the small mid cap names that you invest in, you know, there's a natural reaction to just be passive for many different things, but I think that's a mistake when it comes to small mid cap stocks. I think that has to be much more stock picking specific, but that that's sort of the interesting trade off that we're facing right now is how to invest in what I think is a slowing economic backdrop, not just in the US, but globally. And it's not me talking, it's, it's, it's corporate America talking, and what we've heard from them over the past month plus, as I said, with respect to their earnings, picture and guidance. 

Andrew Brill  10:49  
Now you're talking globally, and I noticed in your summation from last week, shipping costs are coming down. Is that part of the global economy slowing down as well? Or people realizing, you know what it's costing us. We're gonna have to do something here, because it's the cost to ship got exorbitant in a relatively short period of time. But you had written that the cost to ship goods are coming down. 

Peter Boockvar  11:15  
Well, they've only come down the past couple weeks. They're still very elevated for a 40 foot container going from Shanghai to Rotterdam in February 2020 so obviously, pre covid was about $2,000 it went to 15,000 at the on the panic peak in late 21 early 2022 by the end of 2023 it was back below 1700 and had spiked north of 8000 just a few weeks ago. So we've only come in a bit to call it 7500 ish, so we're still well above where we started the year. And for all the reasons we know, with the Houthis and now we have a lot of retailers and people that are trying to front load shipments from other parts of the world just to avoid any inventory issues going into the holidays. So while there's been general disinflation when it comes to goods prices, this is one of the things that could put a floor under that disinflation, if the shipping costs stay elevated, notwithstanding a little pullback over the past couple weeks.

Andrew Brill  12:19  
how much is the global unrest play into the economic developments across the globe, I obviously there's now. There's heightened alerts in the Middle East, the Russia Ukraine thing is still going on. There's there's other unrest that you know could potentially blow up into another conflict. How much is that affecting the global economy at this point?

Peter Boockvar  12:46  
Well, you know, I mentioned the shipping costs. I mean, the spike is directly related to the diversions away from the Red Sea. And not only the trip taking longer going from Shanghai to other cities, but then the ship coming back to Shanghai and those empty containers that China needs back is taking longer to come back. So that's one direct influence. Now, in terms of direct disruptions to the delivery of energy and other commodities, really hasn't shown up, even though the day we're taping this oil just spiked $3 because people are worried about Iran's potential retaliation against Israel. So there's still a geopolitical bid underneath the price of oil, but in terms of actual disruptions, there hasn't been any. So geopolitics directly has only impacted shipping prices, as opposed to other things, at least right now.

Andrew Brill  13:47  
So as we look for prices to come down, if shipping prices don't come down further from these elevated levels, we're not going to see prices come down at all, and it's going to continue to, I guess slow the rate of deflation, or the increase in inflation, or the inflation rate.

Peter Boockvar  14:06  
yeah. I mean, like I said, we've had a lot of disinflation in goods, which is why inflation is coming down as much as it has, to around the 3% ish level. If you look at CPI, which I prefer, relative to PCE and but yeah, it does create a circumstance where once all this inventory de stocking sort of plays out, that goods prices could start to rise again. We'll have to see. But yeah, shipping costs are obviously a key part of the supply chain when it comes to making things and then delivering it. So it's just something we have to keep an eye on. And you know, it gets to the broader conversation of, where does inflation settle out at? Are we just magically going to go back to the one to 2% pace that we had pre 2022, or after this, this distance? Inflationary timeframe after the spike, do we settle out at something higher? I'm in the latter camp. I think three to 4% at least for the next couple of years, is going to be more common than one to two after, like I said, After this, this pullback, but and shipping prices could be one piece of that. But, you know, we'll have to see. But right now, at least on the inflation story, we're still in the disinflationary phase.

Andrew Brill  15:27  
Could that three to 4% be adjusted one way or the other, given the Presidential outcome? 

Peter Boockvar  15:35  
No, I don't necessarily think so. I think both sides are going to still spend a lot of money. I think regardless of who's reelected, the economy is still going to further slow. There's going to be very little ability. Well, on the tax side, the best we're going to get out of Trump is no change, I think, in the corporate income tax, which he cut dramatically, and the personal income taxes, which, at best, will only get extended when they expire next year. Well, where, with Harris, I you know, Republicans are probably have at least one part of Congress. You're not going to see any tax increases on the corporate side, and we'll see how they sort of negotiate the the expiration of the income tax side. So I think whoever's president is going to preside over a recession, and where the stock market goes will be the swing factor on whether it's a moderate one, a malaise type one around the zero, growth type pace, or something more dangerous.

Andrew Brill  16:39  
So you think a recession is we're on our way to that right now?

Peter Boockvar  16:44  
Well, if you break down the US economy, they're already or the global economy, parts of it are already in a recession, right? And we talked about the lower to middle income consumer, they're already in a recession. Manufacturing is already in a recession. The pace of existing home sales is already in a recession. And then, of course, that they're offsets. The only areas of growth in the economy that I'm seeing is higher income, spending, government anything benefiting from government spending, particularly healthcare, which is a huge beneficiary of government spending, and other industrial manufacturing, type facility builds and all the capex that's going into AI. You take Europe, they're bright spots, like Spanish economy. It's benefiting from tourism, for example, and even Italy, but then you have Germany, that's in a recession. And you look at Asia, China's growth slowing, but then you have robust growth in India. So a lot of pushes and pulls here.

Andrew Brill  17:37  
you talk about those other countries. I had read that travel is up, and you had written about the travel is is still somewhat robust, and is that because the dollar is a little bit stronger?

Peter Boockvar  17:50  
Well, yeah, travel has been, I should add that travel has been a healthy area of the economy, the global economy, but there are now some signs that that travel is showing some some signs of softening. Airbnb talked about that, Expedia talked about that, Marriott Hilton. It's only on the edges, and it's still a good area of growth, but it's a variety of things. You mean, look at the cruise line business. They're benefiting tremendously from number one baby boomers that are benefiting from high stock prices and nice interest income on their savings and the desire to travel in a low cost way. And then on the upside, you have young people that are able to travel in a low cost way, international travel sort of post covid is still generating a lot of interest. So it's, like I said, softening around the edges, but still a pretty good, healthy part of the global economy. And just look at TSA numbers in the US. The travel numbers are still pretty good, but we have to watch for potential signs of weakness. I mean, even Disney talked about inflation is negatively impacted the trips to their parks business. So these are things that we have to pay attention to

Andrew Brill  19:03  
Assuming a rate cut is coming. Peter, how big of a cut Do you think that the Fed needs to make? And how big a cut Do you think they are going to make?

Peter Boockvar  19:13  
Well, I think they'll see, they'll see some more data points. I do think that things are moving in the direction of a 50 basis point cut. But I think it's a big mistake to assume that we're on the cusp of this drastic recutting cycle. And I just don't think we're there, and I don't think the Fed is even close to being there, because we have to, they have to start thinking about the impact, not just on on on the economy, which is is going to be mixed, because, just as rate cuts were mixed, hurting those that have a lot of debt and those have that had loans coming due, but benefiting those that had savings. You know, we talked about baby boomers. Well, if they take the Fed funds rate of five and a half to four, you. Uh, on a million dollars of savings, instead of that baby boomer, you know, collecting 50 plus grand, they'll only be collecting 40 grand. You know, it's, it's a 20% haircut in their interest income. But on the flip side, those that have debt coming due, you know, they can get some relief. So on one hand, I wouldn't be surprised if fed works methodically, and I wouldn't be surprised if they started with 25 but if you get another weak payroll number or a softer than expected inflation report, they certainly have every good reason to cut 50. But like I said, they're not slashing and burning interest rates here. They're going to be very methodical in the extent of these rate cuts, at least right now, if the stock market tanks a credit spreads blow out, if the the economy really slows down, notably in the next couple months, which is very possible, you know, then they can get more aggressive. But then there are the risks of that too. If the dollar rule is over, what that means for importing inflation? What happens if oil goes to 100 if the dollar tanks, sort of a lot of moving pieces here that the Fed doesn't even know yet what they're going to do at that September meeting, because they want to gather a lot of information first, before they even walk in the door there, before, sort of pre committing to 25 or 50. But they are going to cut they are just a matter of 25 or 50.

Andrew Brill  21:24  
Do you think that there's a, you know, that sounds totally reasonable, 25 look, start to play it slow. How? First of all, how long does it take for that 25 basis points to shake out into the economy? It's not, it's not a huge number. You're coming down from, say, five to 4.75 but how long does that take to move things slightly?

Peter Boockvar  21:45  
Well, the bond markets already done it for them. We've already eased the two year yields at 4% you know, we're already pricing in a sharp drop in the Fed funds rate over the next year. So the market's done for so but it's still going to take time for that to filter throughout the economy, just as it took time for the rate hikes to filter through the economy. So this is still a this like, Yeah, this is going to take time. And it's not, there's not an immediate effect take some of the edge off the sharp rise in interest rates that we saw from beginning March 2022, but in terms of helping the economy, we'll have to see the drop below 7% in the average 30 mortgage rate has yet to help purchase applications within the mortgage bankers Association's weekly data. So that hasn't had an impact yet. I mean, hopefully it will at some point, but the mortgage rates still high, and home prices are still up dramatically. So at least there hasn't really had that much of an impact. And auto sales, from what we're hearing from anybody that's touching the auto business, whether you're a part supplier in OEM or retailer, it hasn't really had an effect just yet, either.

Andrew Brill  22:58  
But refi are up, so mortgage rates haven't come down, really, but refinances have gone up. Is that because people bought at such a higher rate that they're now starting to refinance as it comes down slightly.

Peter Boockvar  23:09  
yeah, but that's a small sliver. I mean, 90% of the mortgages out there have a mortgage rate below 6% right? We're still well above that. So yeah, the person who was unlucky that got a seven and a quarter mortgage, and maybe they're going to refinance it six and three quarters. But the refis are also going up because people are tapping their their home equity loans. They're doing cash outs, cash out refi. So that's one of the main factors in why refi have ticked off. 

Andrew Brill  23:35  
Talked about the bond market has already priced in that rate cut. Will that hurt the bond sales. I think there's two bond sales this week that are coming up. Will that hurt those bond sales?

Peter Boockvar  23:49  
Maybe. I mean, last week we had a 10 year and 30 year auctions that went quarterly. So maybe, maybe that was one response to the drop in yields. We'll have to see. You know, that's another sort of trade off. On one hand, the government wants lower interest rates to lower their interest expense, but they need interest rates high enough to entice demand. But you know, we have seen a big rally in the bond market. Everyone basically playing the recession odds and but again, another trade off. 

Andrew Brill  24:24  
obviously the country is going to need that money because they're they're not going to stop spending, and they're spending more on interest now than they are on Medicaid and defense. So at some point, somebody's people are going to say, You know what the bond is so is low enough that they're going to have a problem raising money, aren't they?

Peter Boockvar  24:46  
That's we're all watching for. If after 40 years of people whining about excessive debts and deficits, that now it doesn't matter. I think it does. I think the long end of the yield curve is. Is more elevated relative to the short, and the short is obviously going to be bullied around, but what the Fed does, but I think longer term interest rates are going to stay relatively elevated. And if you go into an economic downturn, that $2 trillion budget deficit becomes 3 trillion and that 6% of GDP becomes 10% of GDP

Andrew Brill  25:20  
it's going to create a huge problem, maybe not for you and me, but for our kids or their kids, because someone's going to have to pay off this debt eventually. 

Peter Boockvar  25:29  
Well, no one's paying off the debt. It's just a question of whether you can refinance it at a level that doesn't bankrupt the government, even though, when you have a printing press, the only bankruptcy will be via inflation and a weaker currency, but, yeah, we're all watching to see whether it matters or not, and we'll have to see if, this time it does. 

Andrew Brill  25:49  
I think we get another CPI number this week. We get a bunch of numbers this week. Any expectation?

Peter Boockvar  25:57  
I mean, services inflation will continue to decelerate because of slowing rents, but that's been a sort of a glacial process. We'll see continued disinflation. On the good side, I think net, net bringing them together, you'll still get around a 3% type CPI, and, you know, certainly much better than nine, but still above two and but you know, the Fed focuses on PC, even though I still think they said earlier it should be CPI, but I think the trajectory is in the right direction, but it's just been a slow process in getting there, because of the persistent services inflation, because of that rank component, and because it takes Time for the real life rents to flow into the government's calculation.

Andrew Brill  26:46  
Now, getting back to earnings for a minute now, you've seen slower economic growth with companies I earning, they've they've come in, they're profitable, but less profitable than they had been. Is that right? 

Peter Boockvar  27:00  
Well, year over year, growth will be pretty good, but that's because it's an easy comparison relative to q2 of last year, which saw a decline in earnings, so didn't take much to get an increase. You know, the typical beat rate relative to consensus, is about 75 ish percent, and we're slightly above that. So that's sort of normal, but revenue beats are actually running below expectations. So companies are using that margin lever and that stock buyback lever to beat EPS estimates, but the rate of beats are slowing, so that's something we pay attention to, and slowing even more when it comes to on the revenue side. So yeah, if growth around the world continues to be sluggish and slows further. Well, then, yes, that'll be reflected on both the top and bottom lines, for sure, in q3.

Andrew Brill  27:49  
and once we get this number, obviously the market they could be if it's too high, the market could all tank again. If it's it comes in lower. I would expect the stock market to be favorable to the news. That's obvious, the volatility is normal, but is is the amount of volatility abnormal? I you know, with with good news, usually the stock market comes goes up a little bit, or it goes down a little bit with bad news. But it seems that a little bad news really sinks the market

Peter Boockvar  28:22  
that's actually attaining a changing complexion of the market that started with jobless claims a few weeks ago, and then the next day, when the unemployment rate jumped to 4.3% that all of a sudden the market shifted its attention to bad news. Bad economic news being bad for the markets, as opposed to the past year and a half where bad economic data or softer economic data would would be perceived as good for the markets, because that would imply that rate cuts, but since we've already priced in a bunch of Fed rate cuts, softer economic data is going to be perceived as softer. Now the market sort of 50/50, on this 25 or 50 basis point recut in September, on Monday was 100% chance they were going to cut 50 the Monday when the market had that dramatic sell off. So if you get a softer CPI number, then the market will start to price in 50 basis points instead of 25 but are you know that? But still, the economic concerns are still flowing through. So while the initial response will be, Let's rally the markets and and bounce treasuries, I'm not sure if that stock market rally is sustainable. If there's still this, these global growth concerns that, to me, are growing.

Andrew Brill  29:35  
What is your advice to people you know, and I know that, you know, we have to be careful about advice. But what are you telling people to about the volatility? Just sit tight, and I know you're an investment officer and you're not a trading person, so you invest and you just want to see your money grow. So that intimates a longer term thing. What are you. Telling people now to say, look, you know, don't worry about it. We're going to be okay. We'll keep an eye on it.

Peter Boockvar  30:05  
Well, yeah, it's your time horizon. I never liked being a Pollyanna and saying everything was going to be fine, because in the next couple of years, maybe it's not. Over the next 10 years, you can be more confident. I just think that, like I said, you know, outside of the big stocks, you know, the market's essentially been just chopping around since the peak in late 2021 and I'm just expecting a lot more chop around and still risks of downside. I think that the highs that we saw in early July in the S P is probably the highs for the rest of the year. And I'm just hoping that the market can find some ability to rotate into other things, but maybe yes, maybe no, I think it's just it's still going to be choppy seas. And if I'm right, that the biggest names are now going to be questioned in terms of all this AI spend as a drag on their profits, rather than an enhancer, at least right now, then there are just less places to hide in the market, especially if the economy continues to weaken, which those companies are subject to that influence as well. So, you know, I just like to watch my back when it comes to things, particularly now, and hopefully the upside takes care of itself. 

Andrew Brill  31:16  
interesting. You said that AI is a spend, and I, you know, I thank you, because I never looked at it that way. Because in order to have AI, you actually have to purchase the AI and it, you know, I guess the companies who are making the chip or making the hardware are are going to be doing well, but there's fewer of those than every other type of stock out there. So do you think that that bubble has burst a little bit.

Peter Boockvar  31:41  
Well, I think the hype cycle of that bubble is bursting. I think people are questioning is, what is the return on all this spend, and whether it's going to be appropriate relative to that spend? I mean, these big companies, fortunately, they can afford it. So if they're going to spend 50 to $100 billion billion dollars a year on this spend 50, I guess a lot of big names. It's like 15 to 20 per quarter, so north of 50 per year. Well, you know, the market's finally saying, Okay, show me the money in terms of that return. Now, Nvidia is, is obviously benefiting from that, but super micro is too, but that stock has gotten hammered off its highs, so it's a more tougher game. Now the AI hype phase, as I said, is over. Now it's again, the Show Me the Money phase.

Andrew Brill  32:36  
So for the rest of the year, are we looking at a rocky road, a lot of ups and downs and sort of moving sideways instead of going up or down? 

Peter Boockvar  32:48  
Well, we're going to go up and down. I think it's just going to be a much choppier environment through the rest of the year. Number one, you have the leaders in the market that are that are being challenged. Now you have economic growth authorities worries that are growing. The real is the Fed rate cuts that have already been priced in. So I'm just trying to find what the potential, you know, tailwind catalyst can be. And, you know, it would have to be that, that sort of, that soft landing type thing. And you know, I'm always skeptical of soft landings. I hope it happens, of course, because we're long stocks. But, you know, like I said, I'm just still watching my back here in this kind of environment.

Andrew Brill  33:29  
Do you find times like these to be most challenging when there, there doesn't seem to be a clear direction?

Peter Boockvar  33:35  
Well, up until mid July, the Russell 2000 was down on the year, you know, then two weeks later, we were up 10% and then two weeks later, we've given them a lot of that back. It's so it's yeah, when the VIX is north of 20 that tells you that the average daily range is much higher and and you got to have a stronger stomach, where some Tums next to you, if you're going to be paying attention to the day to day movements in the market. 

Andrew Brill  34:02  
I carry that in my bag. What are we expecting this week with the news? 

Peter Boockvar  34:07  
Well, as we talked about the the inflation data will be most important, but also also important will be what we hear from Home Depot and Walmart, two of the biggest retailers in the country, and what sort of tell that is and on the US consumer.

Andrew Brill  34:22  
Yeah, Walmart's reporting this week, and it'll be interesting to see what retail sales are, because that'll tell us a lot about where we are in the economy, right?

Yeah, for sure. 

Peter, thanks so much for joining us, and I really appreciate it. The book report. Where can we find you?

Peter Boockvar  34:40  
Peterboockvar.substack.com

Andrew Brill  34:43  
so we will look for that and I will continue to read it. Thank you so much, Peter. I really appreciate it. 

Peter Boockvar  34:48  
Thanks for having me. Always fun to be on 

Andrew Brill  34:50  
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