What If The Real Superpower Is A Strait

March 16, 2026 | Season 8 | Episode 7

We track how the Strait of Hormuz turns geography into leverage, pushing oil prices toward the level that can rattle inflation, rates, and stocks. We also connect war-driven energy shocks to the Fed’s next decision and then pivot to why Microsoft and Nvidia may look mispriced despite nonstop AI headlines. 
• geography as the constraint technology cannot erase 
• the Strait of Hormuz as a live chokepoint for oil prices 
• how Iran can use shipping disruption as strategic leverage 
• World War I Dardanelles and Gallipoli as modern parallels 
• the English Channel lesson and why narrow waterways shape war 
• China’s Malacca Dilemma and Taiwan-related energy vulnerability 
• oil’s link to inflation expectations and Treasury yields 
• deficit and debt-servicing risk as a secondary market shock 
• key war headlines including escorts and regional spillovers 
• the week ahead for the Federal Reserve and market pricing 
• why market narratives fail with Bitcoin and clean energy moves 
• the valuation case for Microsoft via Azure, OpenAI, and Copilot 
• what to watch at Nvidia GTC including inferencing and supply

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Transcript

Opening And War Context

Keith Lanton 0:00

Good morning. Today is Monday, March sixteenth. Past the halfway point already of the last month of the first quarter. Yesterday the uh Ides of March, March fifteenth, and we have a lot to digest this morning. Once again, the uh military action against Iran, with uh the United States and Israel clearly uh dominating the uh military conflict, nevertheless the choke point at the Straits of Hormuz proving to disrupt uh oil markets, and we will talk about that. This morning we're gonna talk about a whole bunch of things. First off, we're gonna talk about geography and how uh geography uh oftentimes uh plays such a significant role in conflict, and uh this is one thing that technology has not yet been able to supersede. And uh we're seeing that again with world energy markets being held hostage to what's taking place in the very narrow waterway at the Straits of Uh Hormuz, and oil prices uh vacillating above $100 per barrel. That seems to be the psychologically important point. This morning, as of right now, oil has come back down again below $100. Treasury Secretary Besson saying that the U.S. is allowing Iranian tankers through the Straits of uh Hormuz. Oil right now is around $97,98 a barrel. I'm actually in the 96 handle right now. Also talks that President Trump and Premier Xi of China that their summit may be delayed if uh President Trump needs to stay in Washington uh for the war. The Chinese have also expressed uh reservations about uh holding a summit during the conflict taking place in the Middle East. So that'll also be an additional uh focal point uh over the next uh several days, if not next several weeks. The relationship between the U.S. and China certainly something that the uh financial markets uh will keep a keen eye on. So let's take a look here uh at what's really roiling financial markets. So we've seen some weakness in financial markets here in the United States, uh, despite the fact that the United States is uh clearly with uh its ally Israel assisting, clearly winning the war against uh Iran and uh dominating the uh military conflict. Nevertheless, we have this factor which the Iranians uh possibly using as strategic leverage, which is uh the price of oil. And this comes down to what was known before, so this is not something that the U.S. uh wasn't aware of and that the military strategists here didn't uh think of, but nevertheless, the geography of the Straits of Hormuz is proving challenging. In fact, uh President Trump today calling on uh allies to assist in the Straits of Hormuz uh with uh guiding tankers and uh providing some military assistance, suggesting that if our allies don't uh come and assist, that it's something that the United States uh will remember going forward. Oftentimes in military conflicts, that first ninety-nine percent, it's really not limited to military conflicts. It's really uh lots of things that we each individually try and do. We get that 99 or 99.5, 99.9% we're able to uh get there, and it's that last little bit that we can't get over over the hump. And it's I guess not surprising that uh that that last little bit is exactly where the the the group that uh you're seeking to uh displace, in this case Iran, uh, chooses to uh focus on what they think is their greatest strategic asset or what they think will be most difficult for you to accomplish, making it even more difficult. And that is the reason why the uh Straits of Hormuz, with their very narrow waterway, are proving so challenging. And this is despite the fact if you think about the accomplishments that the US and Israel have made just in the last few years, the thought of attacking Iran on a scale that we have seen and uh being able to have such clear dominance over uh Iran just uh three years ago is something that was probably not in the expectations of almost any military strategist. And this is because Iran is 75 times the size of uh Israel. So when you're thinking about the uh the geography and the leverage that the Iranians uh have and uh Israel being an ally of the United States, and the United States thinking about uh the vulnerability of Israel, the calculus here is Iran is the seventeenth largest country in the world, 636,000 square miles. Israel is uh 8,500 square miles. It's smaller than Sicily. Iran has almost a hundred million people, Israel has almost 10 million people. So by any metric, just uh from a sheer size standpoint, uh very challenging uh to challenge uh Iran, uh not to use that word uh over and over, but uh clearly a challenge. At the same time, Iran had uh their proxies in in the uh Gaza area with Hamas. Hezbollah was entrenched in uh Lebanon and also entrenched in Syria, making it uh challenging for Israel and the United States to attack Iran because they had these uh proxies that could also uh be uh troublesome. In the last uh few years, Israel, United States neutralized these these proxies to a large extent, having completely eliminated them, but a large uh neutralization, and uh have been able to significantly diminish uh Iran's uh military capabilities. So clearly tremendous progress having been made. But yet back to the Straits of Hormuz and why it's uh proving so difficult, uh we could take a look at uh history and why geography matters. So if we go back in history, we're gonna talk a little bit about uh World War One. And during World War One, the Allies were seeking to help supply Russia. So if you think about the map uh of uh Europe, you had uh Great Britain, France, later the United States entering the war, but uh between uh between those countries and their other ally at the time, Russia, you had you had in between the the other powers, Germany, Austria, and Hungary, and therefore supplying Russia with military aid and equipment and food and resources uh was challenging. So the allies, Winston Churchill at the time in uh his military role, sought to take the British Navy and go through what at the time was was the Ottoman Empire, which was which was relatively weak, but was on the side of neutrality at the time, but nevertheless uh was perceived to be more closely allied with with not the not the Allies. And uh the British needed to supply the Russians, they couldn't do it on land, so they decided to do it by water, and uh they needed to get through the Dardanelles, which is a very narrow waterway in uh in right right through uh the capital of uh of uh Turkey and be able to supply uh Russia going going north. But despite the fact that uh the British Navy was the preeminent Navy of the world here in 1915, some uh suggesting that there are lots of lots of parallels between what the uh the British encountered in 1915 and perhaps what the US and Israel are encountering today, which is uh known as choke point warfare, where a smaller power uses geography to neutralize the advantage of a massive water navy. So in Iran today, and the Ottoman Empire then, you're not trying to win a traditional naval battle. Instead, what they're trying to do is set up uh layered defenses to make the water impassable. So in 1915, fifth the uh Ottomans, what they did was they uh they laid uh mines just like we're seeing today, and at the time that was a successful strategy. British battleships were decimated by rows of contact uh with mines, and what the uh Ottomans did is they set up mobile howitzer batteries uh along their along their 150 mile co coastline to protect their minefields, somewhat similar to what Iran may be doing today, where they're using drones and uh and and anti-ship cruise missiles, and they are deploying that against their vast uh coastline, which is rugged, to achieve a similar effect. And the lesson that was learned in 1915 that uh the U.S. is certainly studying today is that naval power alone rarely suffices to force a straight open. So, what did Winston Churchill do back then? Well, he thought after he reassessed whether or not British battleships could simply stream through the Dardanelles, and what the British decided to do was uh they decided to launch a ground invasion, and that ground invasion was called Gallipoli, and it led to uh significant and s s loss of uh of life on both sides, casualties uh in terms of dead and injured, approaching uh two hundred and fifty thousand. So this is what the United States is is thinking about today when we think about how we are going to uh get the Straits of Hormuz open. Talking about uh World War I, let's move to World War II, let's talk about the importance of uh narrow waterways, and we can look at the English Channel separating Great Britain from the rest of uh Europe, which at that point Western Europe was largely conquered by the by the Germans, the Nazis, and it was just that waterway that was uh separating Great Britain from the the Germans and the British were able to uh hold out until uh we, the United States, the Americans, uh entered the uh the war during uh World War II. So again, that waterway, that narrow body of water proving proving to uh have a significant effect uh on military ambitions. And when we take a look here today, thinking forward of what could be the next choke point, the Chinese are carefully watching what is taking place in the Straits of Hormuz, not only because they're keenly focused on price of oil and uh the geopolitical ramifications of what's taking place in the Middle East, but because the Chinese are acutely aware that if they were to engage in a military campaign, for example, to uh invade Taiwan, which is certainly something that uh has been in the uh mindset of U.S. leaders, one area where the Chinese are vulnerable is not not close to the South China Sea, but it is in the Strait of Malacca. It's often called the Chinese Achilles Heel. So while the fighting would occur in the Taiwan Strait if uh fighting were to occur, the war could be won 3,000 kilometers away in that Malaka choke point. And in fact, this actually has a name in China called the Malaka Dilemma, and that was coined by former Chinese leader Hu Xin Tao in 2003, and it remains a central concern for Chinese military planners in 2026. So if the Chinese did launch an invasion, the U.S. and its allies, especially if uh countries uh in that hemisphere like India and Australia were to assist us, they could establish a distant blockade at Malacca. Instead of fighting China's massive fleet or missiles near Taiwan, the U.S. could simply stop tankers in the middle of the Indian Ocean. And the Chinese would be forced to rely on their strategic reserves, which are estimated about 1.2 billion barrels right now, which would last them somewhere between three and four months. Remember, U.S. stockpiles about 400 million barrels, so the Chinese have uh really topped off their strategic reserve, perhaps uh because they're thinking about uh having this uh optionality. So an invasion of Taiwan would cause the Chinese to have to focus their uh naval power at the Taiwanese, and they would have difficulty therefore sending significant naval power to the uh Straits of Malacca, and this is one of the big dilemmas that the Chinese have, that they would need to have a quick and decisive victory if they were to, and I'm I'm not implying that this is imminent, but if they were to attack Taiwan, they would need a quick victory because they could easily get bogged down with their energy needs despite having a strong strategic petroleum reserve. The Chinese are also actively engaged in finding alternatives, liquefied coal, building pipelines so that they have alternatives uh to receiving crude oil from the uh Straits of uh through the Straits of Malacca from from the Middle East. And the Straits of Malacca are extraordinarily challenging at its narrowest point. It's only about 1.5 uh nautical miles, and it's even more challenging than that because there are shallow reefs uh all around in the uh straits, uh making it challenging for large tankers, and oftentimes they have to go through in a single file fashion. So just the sinking of one ship or the laying of mines in that in that in that area could uh effectively shut that down. So you can see that what's taken place in in the Middle East and the in the Straits of Uh Hormuz, we've seen something similar just in the last uh hundred plus years uh with the uh Dardnells in in the Ottoman Empire and present-day Turkey. We saw the effect uh from the English Channel in World War II. Uh we see what's taken place in the Straits of Hormuz, we see that's the reason why President Trump is uh seeking uh our allies to uh offer us assistance after suggesting you know that this is something we can handle unilaterally, now, you know, looking for uh for help here because this is a uh challenging situation, and we can see that this potentially could be challenging for the Chinese as well in the future. So lots of uh different folks paying lots of attention for lots of different reasons. And we, of course, paying attention because this is the single driving force affecting the price of energy, which right now is uh the fulcrum that is having the greatest leverage over uh the movement of share prices here in the United States at this time. So let's take a look at the financial markets this morning. I mentioned oil slipping back below uh $100 per barrel, perhaps on some of those comments from from uh Treasury Secretary uh Besson, perhaps uh on some of the speculation that some of uh our uh allies uh will uh come and assist us uh in the uh Strait of uh Hormuz. And uh this uh relief uh due to the uh drop here in uh oil prices is one of the factors uh driving futures higher. Dow futures up about 350 points, Nasdaq futures up almost 300 points this morning. SP futures up about 64 points. So we're looking to move uh just about north of uh 1%. Oil this morning is uh down $3.14 right now at $95.57. That's for uh Brent crude. That's down 3%. Ten year treasury yield is down five basis points to a 423 from a 428. Treasury yields have been moving higher on concerns that higher oil prices, higher liquefied natural gas prices will reverberate through the economy because oil and gas is a big input into uh lots of different uh products that get uh created and made, and therefore that uh cost uh gets built into so many goods and services that uh we as Americans uh utilize, and therefore the price of uh oil and gas has a uh big effect on inflation. Inflation starts picking up, then those uh expectations get uh built into the psyche and the mindset, and it becomes hard to uh change, and we get a uh cycle of potential uh inflation moving forward. That's what the market's worried about, that's what the Trump administration and the Fed are uh trying to uh prevent. So that 10-year treasury moving A on those inflation expectations and B on concerns that the U.S. federal deficit, which already is is almost uh $39 trillion. If you think about it, we were talking only like, you know, 12 to 18 months ago about 35, 36 trillion. Now we're talking 39 trillion. Uh Ray Dalio out over the weekend, suggesting that at some point the U.S. will reach a tipping point uh in terms of the amount of debt it has and the amount of interest that we have to pay. So this war uh also having strong secondary effects in terms of adding to our deficit concerns about uh what uh what will be uh going forward once this conflict's resolved is uh in the aftermath is well, how much debt did did we incur and can we uh tolerate that debt and what do we do about that debt because if interest rates keep rising, that makes the debt harder to service and makes the debt an even greater challenge. So the treasury market weighing, the size of the deficit, the cost to service the deficit, and inflation expectations, making uh the ten-year Treasury uh specifically vulnerable to uh to uh you know very, very quick changes in those expectations. This morning we had the Wall Street Journal saying the Trump administration plans to announce a multi-country coalition that will escort ships through the uh Straits of Hormuz. An announcement coming this week. Energy Secretary Chris Wright said in an interview that Iran will certainly the Iran war will certainly come to an end in the next few weeks, noting he thinks the Straits of Hormuz will be opened in the not too distant uh future. That reporting coming from ABC News. Iran's foreign minister said he is open to any regional initiative to end the war, but no specific proposal has been made. That's according to uh Bloomberg. Iran's foreign minister says uh the war must end in such a way that our enemies never again think of uh repeating these attacks. The U.S. did attack military sites on Iran's Carg Island, and President Trump warned oil infrastructure on the island will be targeted unless the Straits of Hormuz are reopened. Iran threatened to attack oil facilities in the Middle East if Carg oil infrastructure is targeted. Now there are reports this morning the U.S. continues to allow Iranian oil to flow through the Straits of Hormuz. Reports of about a million and a half barrels a day coming out of Iran still. So perhaps that's another reason the energy market taking a little bit of a uh sigh of relief at the moment, but understanding that uh that uh is a uh tenuous uh situation and uh can change quickly. Pentagon is going to be uh deploying an additional 5,000 Marines and sailors to the Middle East, according to uh NBC News. Bloomberg reporting that the United Arab Emirates, the UAE, is halting oil loadings at a hub following drone attacks. We also have reports that oil companies have warned the Trump administration that the Straits of Hormuz closure, if that were to continue, uh that would push up uh energy prices, fairly obvious, but nevertheless, Wall Street Journal reporting that. And Financial Times, as I mentioned earlier, reporting that President Trump might delay the summit with Chinese President Xi to the I due to the Iran war. And Reuters reporting that airlines here in the United States are urging Congress to fund the DHS as airport disruptions continue, long, long lines here in the United States. So this week, what do we have taken place? Well, Wednesday, the Federal Open Market Committee is going to announce its monetary policy decision. Central bank widely uh expected to keep the Fed funds rate unchanged at 3.5 to 3.75%. The FOMC Federal Open Market Committee, that is, also releases its quarterly summary of economic projections. That's uh what uh the uh the folks at the Fed uh think uh of uh the economy uh moving forward and their expectations on a more specific uh basis. The Fed is in a tricky position. Most recent jobs report showing a decline of 92,000 non-farm payrolls. Meanwhile, oil is up uh by more than 33% since the war started, which obviously stokes fear of inflation. On top of that, Chairman Powell's term ends in May, and his potential successor, Kevin Walsh, is still waiting to be confirmed by the Senate. Remember that the uh Senate is uh holding up his uh confirmation unless the Fed the case against the Fed, which uh the Department of Justice is pursuing, is dropped. At the moment, traders are leaning toward the inflation side of the Fed's dual mandate, pricing at about one-quarter point interest rate cut by the end of the year, that is down from two to three, which was the expectation at the end of February. If you're looking at earnings going forward this week, Micron Technologies reports results after the market on Wednesday, FedEx Thursday after the close. Some interesting statistics. The percentage of oil that uh comes through the Straits of Hormuz that uh goes to Asia, that's 87%. So keeping the Straits of Hormuz open most benefits the uh Asian economies. Energy prices here in the United States, uh obviously higher energy stocks year to date, up 26% after being uh down last year. Speaking of energy, talking about artificial intelligence and the energy needed for artificial intelligence. We're gonna need a lot more electricians, so if there's any students out there thinking about a career, 300,000, that's the number of new electricians that will be needed over the next uh ten years to meet AI demand. All right. Let's uh move on, talk a little bit about some thoughts here about uh financial markets, and oftentimes, even if you know what's gonna happen, if someone told you President Trump's gonna win the election in in you know November of 2024, President Biden's gonna win the election in November of 2020, what's gonna happen to uh different segments of the financial markets based on the election of these these men as president? I would say widely expected that uh President uh Trump was viewed as a president who was extremely favorable or or positive, at least coming into his second administration on cryptocurrency. President Biden was uh viewed as a president uh who was not a friend to fossil fuels, that uh he was a president seeking to expand uh green energy, alternative energy, and therefore fossil fuels uh would uh not be the place to uh invest uh during his presidency. But let's take a look here and uh This is one of the reasons why it's uh it's so hard to pick individual stocks, individual sectors, uh what took place. So since President Office President Trump took office in January, if we were to take a look at the price of uh Bitcoin, it's down about twenty-five percent. Since President Trump became president, what do you think has happened to the price of alternative energy stocks? A group that he has railed against, wanting to shut down some of the uh wind power projects, cutting electric vehicle uh rebates, not being a big advocate for uh solar energy, certainly a proponent uh to increase U.S. uh oil and gas production here in the United States. These aren't political statements or views. This is just uh what what it is that were the uh platforms of of the president coming in. Well, Bitcoin down 25% since President Trump became president. Alternative energy stocks, as measured by the ETF ICLN, are up about 46% since uh President Trump took office. Let's talk about energy stocks. Let's talk about uh the price of oil, gas, pipelines, things like that, measured by XLE, which is an ETF uh tied to uh you know fossil fuels in general. During President Trump's uh first term, XLE down about 10%. During President Biden's term, XLE was up about 100%. During President Trump's second term, and most of this has happened just in the last few months, XLE is up about 25%. I think I just mentioned about 26%. So uh we are certainly seeing that that bump, but still significantly behind what happened during uh President Biden being president, and largely attributed to the war in Iran, not necessarily the uh policies uh that uh have been uh pursued. Moving on to uh Barron's, we're gonna talk about two uh big large cap tech stocks that certainly uh have a significant influence on the market. These are two of the largest companies in the world, one of which is Microsoft. Microsoft was the headline front page uh story in Barron's this weekend. Microsoft stock hasn't been this cheap in a decade, they say. It's time to buy. For the first time in ten years, Microsoft is trading evaluation close to the overall SP 500, a forward PE of 22, and that's despite shedding one trillion, one trillion in market value since its peak in July of 2024. The company's fundamentals uh remain aggressive with projected revenue of $328 billion. That's up 16%. Earnings growth expected to be up 21%. The stock has been driven down by fears that artificial intelligence will eat into the success of traditional software companies. AI agents and open source models could theoretically replace expensive subscriptions like Office 365 with cheaper automated tools, and the software ETF uh is down twenty percent this year, while the semiconductor ETF, the hardware, so to speak, sector, is up ten percent. But Baron suggests that Microsoft is uh uniquely built for this storm, and they cite three reasons uh why they think uh markets are underestimating Microsoft. One is the cloud infrastructure, also known as uh their their division Azure, saying that even if AI agents were to destroy traditional software, which they're not predicting, but even if they were, they still require massive computing power. So they would still need a lot of uh power from a unit of Microsoft, uh, which is Azure. And Azore's revenue grew 40% last quarter. So the thesis is Microsoft wins whether the app is their own or if the app is a competitor's. So whether it's the Microsoft software or a competitor's, Microsoft wins either way. They may win a little bit more if it's their own. They've got better margins, but nevertheless, at the market multiple, you are being uh paid, so to speak, for even a worst case scenario or it's built into the price already. Number two, Microsoft has a huge stake in open AI. Microsoft invested $13 billion in OpenAI. It's now estimated to be worth over $200 billion. So if OpenAI goes on to uh even greater success if it becomes the dominant or one of the co-dominant platforms of the next era, Microsoft as its largest shareholder would be a winner as well. Also, when we take a look at Microsoft rolling out their 365 copilots, some are suggesting it's been a little bit uh below expectations, only 15 million users, only 3% of their base. You could look at that as half full, half empty. But the half-full scenario, which Barons is taking, says that leaves lots of room for massive growth if they've only got 3% penetration. And they think that Microsoft has lots of potential for uh greater penetration because historically Microsoft's first version is not the version that is its uh most powerful. The second, third, fourth versions of Microsoft is traditionally when they quote unquote get it right. So uh based on history, uh they feel that uh Microsoft has lots of upside uh in deploying their uh artificial intelligence technology through Copilot. So the bottom line is the uh current market sentiment uh they say is somewhat contradictory pricing in both negative scenarios. If there's an AI bubble, well, Microsoft will be someone who is uh significantly hurt, and Baron's suggesting you you can't have it both ways because they have the Azure unit, so Microsoft still wins. They own open AI, they still win. And on the flip side, if uh software is not uh destroyed by artificial intelligence, Microsoft with their uh apps and their platform and their large software margins will uh be an even bigger winner. So we've got win and bigger winner is the thesis here. Market stock trading at a uh forward PE of twenty-two, which is uh in line with the market, suggesting Microsoft's got uh better growth, better uh opportunity than the market. So risk reward here they suggest is very favorable. All right, let's take a look at one of the stocks that uh arguably has been the beneficiary of artificial intelligence, and Microsoft having been one as well, but uh market reassessing uh the story on Microsoft, but NVIDIA is is the uh perhaps the most most comes to mind company when it comes to uh artificial intelligence. And if you're going to own an artificial intelligence story stock, well, NVIDIA may be the poster child of artificial intelligence stocks. And Baron's saying that despite a staggering 22,000 percent, that is correct, 22,000 percent gain over the last decade, NVIDIA stock is actually depressed relative to its potential. They point out that NVIDIA is on track to become the most prosperous company in history. Its projected cash free cash flow is expected to hit $178 billion this year. That would surpass the record set by Saudi Armico in 2022. And yet, NVIDIA is trading at 17 times next year's projected earnings, which is a discount to the SP 500. This has led 93% of analysts to maintain and buy. The average price target is uh 45% higher than it currently is. This week, NVIDIA is hosting its uh GPU technology conference, which is called the GTC 2026 event, and NVIDIA is saying this marks a pivot point in the AI industry. They say the last few years focused on training, which is building AI models, and they say the future is about inferencing. This is uh running those models more efficiently. So in 2019, standard CPUs, central processing units like Intel's uh chips that run your, you know, perhaps your home PC, they accounted for 87% of data center spending. That was in 2019. Six years later, data center spending, 88% are GPUs, those are graphic processing units from companies like NVIDIA, who is the leader. Also at this conference, market will be looking to see if the twenty billion dollars that NVIDIA spent to acquire talent and licensing technology from GROK for their large processing unit technology, if they will be able to leverage that to make their chips cheaper and more efficient. That's something that that analysts are gonna be looking for out of the conference. What else are they gonna be looking for? They're gonna be looking for updates on the availability of wafers, memory, and optic in in terms of in terms of supply chain, how how how well fed is the chain going to be. Are they gonna be bottlenecks? We talked about the bottleneck earlier just graphically. Here's a bottleneck, you know, due to uh production constraints. Of course, geopolitics. Folks will be interested in seeing what what the CEO, Jensen Wang, has to say about uh the geopolitical situation and how the ongoing war in Iran may impact power costs and how it may impact demand from sovereign uh customers. These are government customers like uh governments uh in the Middle East who are uh big customers. And the markets will be focused on the product roadmap, details on custom chips that can compete with in-house hardware being developed by hyperscalers like Amazon. So the bottom line is while the stock's immediate reaction is uncertain, the gap between NVIDIA's astronomical earnings growth and its current stock price, some are suggesting, some analysts saying, is unsustainable. We'll be looking to see if uh if uh that CEO Jensen Wang leads the uh charge uh suggesting that despite the tremendous gains, uh 22,000 uh percent over the last 10 years, despite that that there's a lot more in the tank for NVIDIA, and in fact the bad news largely being reflected in the stocks. Same thesis here and a different different take as Microsoft, bad news being built in, lots of uh potential uh growth uh for the future, two different stories Microsoft, NVIDIA, two different two different uh risk profiles, but nevertheless Barron's feels that they both uh have attractive risk rewards. That doesn't mean that there are not risks here and that these stocks uh are guaranteed to go higher, but the feeling that the odds over the long term are favorable. That's everything I've got.